MBER 





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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cliap. Copyright No. 

ShelflhLi_LA ? 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



Amber Glints. 



Amber Glints 



By Amber, 

Author of " Rosemary and Rue.' 



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Chicago and New York: 

Rand, McNally & Company. 
MDCCCXCVII. 



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JAN. ^^ly-m 



TWO C9W?^ n^CElVED 



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Copyright, 1897, by W. W. Denslow. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Where she was born, or when, are mat- 
ters of no consequence at all. Regarding 
her, the event is when you met her. The 
incidents are the subsequent meetings,: — 
with occasional pictures she brings you of 
the pleasures or the miseries of some day 
that intervened. I have immensely enjoyed 
her tribulations. There is something so 
ideally complete about them; their agony 
is so absolutely perfect, so hopeless and ut- 
ter, and so infallibly eternal, that they are 
very satisfying. And her joys are just as 
artistic. I don't think much of snow storms 
myself, but the description of one which 
she brought me filled my ears with that 
musical silence of a winter night, stirred 
my blood with the tonic of frost, and filled 
my soul with rnarvel at the grandeur she 
had caught. Hot days do not delight me. 
But when she has come in with the blaze of 
midsummer fairly glorifying her, fusing the 



6 %ntv0&ucti0n. 

little things of life into greatness, melting 
conventionality, consuming pride, I have 
been thankful one Gheber is left me. 

I have never known quite so finely strung 
an organism. Her possibilities are almost 
infinite. Her appreciation of noble things 
may not prove her ability any more than her 
singularly accurate conceptions of infamy 
prove her bad. But her actions prove her 
noble beyond the limits of most women. 
Her permanent residence is on a height, 
close to the beauties we can dimly see; and 
her mission is to transcribe the laws of that 
later Sinai for us who dwell in the valleys — 
trying with small success to leave all golden 
calves unworshiped. Her constant progress 
is along a pathway on the sword-sharp 
sierra which divides the world; and all the 
kingdoms of the earth with their fullness 
is on the right, and all the abject suffering 
is on the left. And both are hers. How 
she would take from plenty for the banish- 
ment of penury if she could, we that know 
her can well understand. How she daily 
perils her already narrow footing by sup- 
plying her left hand before her right is full 
we also know — and we have laughed at her 
toppling struggles many a time. 



Amber is a Bohemian of Bohemia. She 
doesn't fit convention. She despises it. 
One wonders she did not enter into her 
kingdom long ago. The quick wit that 
springs spontaneous from the soul of sur- 
prise is as old wine to her! The stilted hu- 
mor that comes in the evening dress of pre- 
pared occasions is as last night's lees. Pip- 
ing songs contain no music; but the reson- 
ance and breadth and depth that roll from 
power's organ are her anthems. 

And yet the woman is an aristocrat. She 
has no patience with socialism, and no mer- 
cy for anarchists. She loves jewels — and 
wears them, to her heart's delight. When 
law was strangled here in Chicago a year 
ago; when commerce was writhing under 
feet of men who did not know the blessed- 
ness of industry; when the badge of civil- 
ization's enmity was a white ribbon — and 
weak men and women were wearing it for 
self-protection, she came up in the elevator 
with a group of labeled serfs, cried out upon 
them, and said she would rather ride with 
smallpox patients. It made her enemies 
for a day. And in that day she was almost 
happy. But no drop of a sycophant's 
blood' troubles her veins. As miserable a 



8 ^ntxaanctixfu. 

night as she ever passed was that in the 
drawing-room of a great lady who wanted 
to cultivate her, if she had known how — and 
had dared; and poor Amber, almost wor- 
shiped by thousands, was as the most em- 
barrassed cypher when she came to make 
her adieu. It was not her atmosphere. 

Bohemia is; and there she reigns. It 
was her own creation. She invited two or 
three people for an evening weekly, and the 
room grew quickly too small for those who 
came. Bohemia moved its frontiers, and 
now, after much migration, the tribe has a 
local habitation. Perhaps a hundred per- 
sons come to the weekly meetings. The 
work is to keep away aliens. Tliose to the 
manner born either can do good things, or 
they know when good things are done. It 
is there the tenors whose stage songs are 
superb, breathe the air of their home, touch 
hand with their brothers, and sing divinely. 
It is there the raconteur, whose characters 
walk in procession where riches and conven- 
tionality pay, himself becomes those char- 
acters, and we laugh — not at them, but with 
them. The music there is not for sale. 
The eloquence may not be purchased. The 
good-fellowship is beyond all price. And 



from first to last Amber is Queen of Bo- 
hemia. 

What has she done? Well she has writ- 
ten tomes of the most beautiful poetry — 
with and without rhyme — which has glori- 
fied Chicago newspapers. She has reached 
a myriad of men and women who know her 
name, who thank her because of her mess- 
age; who love her because of the soul that 
she coins into "jeweled odes, and epigrams 
just five words long;" who are helped by 
her philosophies; who are chastened by her 
lectures ; who are comforted as angels might 
comfort by the rhythmic beauty of her lines. 
I do not believe there is a writer in the coun- 
try who has touched with so strong a per- 
sonal influence so many readers ; who has so 
wonderfully attached to her so numerous 
and so sensibly interested an audience. I 
really do not believe any other writer has 
comforted so many in trouble, has added 
color to the delight of so many who were 
happy, has led into light so many who were 
confused. 

And this is Amber — Martha Evarts Hold- 
en — a woman of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief ; a woman who has warmed both 
hands at the fire of life; a woman whose 



lo Sntvxr4^ujcttxrn. 

joys arc ecstasies and whose trials are stake 
and wheel. I wish I might tell of her 
home; of the two beautiful daughters and 
the manly son; of the good gray mother to 
whom this Queen of Bohemia is still a child. 
But after all, it may be enough to say of 
one, that he has influenced — and always for 
good — the largest number of those who 
love the genuine, who appreciate beauty, 
and who make sure of heaven by mixing it 
with earth. 

LeRoy Aemstrong. 



AflBER GLINTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The other night I sat for an hour on a 
bench in a St. Paul park and looked out 
upon a scene of beauty, the memory of 
which lingers like the echo of a song in my 
heart. Beneath my feet lay stars and shad- 
ows. Above my head both shadows and 
stars were duplicated in softest infinitude. 
There was not a sound to break the stillness, 
save where an unseen fountain plashed its 
waters, or some idler, strolling home, whis- 
tled in the dewy dark. As far as eye could 
reach or ear could listen was silence, and 
nothing but silence, with scents of fading 
blossoms on the air. The great, passionate, 
bewildering town lay at my feet as quiet as 
some mighty soul in the arms of omniscient 
death. Not a tremor of its pain, not an echo 
of its joy reached me, and yet I knew that 
pleasure played its evanescent part, that 



12 ^mhi^x (Mints. 

white lips drank deep of sorrow's mystic 
wine, and sin flouted its scarlet shame be- 
hind the pall of shadow that overhung the 
city a hundred feet below the heights 
whereon I sat. Everything that was 
defiling, or harsh, or bitter to be borne 
was effaced by a touch as soft and all-ob- 
scuring as the snow. There was nothing 
but the tender allurement of an all-pervad- 
ing peace in the picture upon which I gazed. 
The shading of a downy wing was never 
more delicate, the bloom on a wayside 
flower more darkly, deeply purple than the 
glamor of color revealed by the illumination 
of ten thousand sparkling lamps. And as I 
looked I thought to myself: "I wonder 
if when I have climbed the last height be- 
tween my tired feet and the celestial city, 
leaving far behind me the bustling town 
where I have wept and struggled and en- 
dured, I shall look back upon a picture that 
gives so little evidence of it all. Will death's 
soft finger efface the harshness of the rug- 
ged outline and turn the shadows into 
bloom of plums? Shall all the anguish be 
forgotten in a peace that lingers like the 
touch of feathers in the dark, or the brush of 
mignonette sprays against a fevered face? 



^mhi^x CSIints, 13 

It is hardly worth while caring for present 
difficulties when to-morrow they shall be 
folded away and forgotten, as the defile- 
ments of yonder town beneath the out- 
spread palm of holy night !" 



Another day I took the trolley for Min- 
nehaha Falls and lingered for an hour in a 
glen full of fern and the music of brooks. 
The fall itself reminds me of a mother stand- 
ing with her finger on her lip at the doorway 
of her nursery. "Hush!" she seems to say. 
"Hush! for the little ones are asleep, and a 
rude footfall may disturb them. Make no 
noise, lest my darlings awaken and fill the 
valley with their fretful crying. Hush, I 
say, and evermore, hush, while the shadows 
lengthen and the new moon slips her light 
canoe through the blue silence of the sky." 
There is nothing one bit inspiring or grand 
in Minnehaha Falls, but I love to be there, 
and some day I am going again when no- 
body but the bee and I are on hand to listen 
to the whispered hush of falling water. You 
will seldom find such golden-rod as late 
summer has drifted into the valley. It is as 
though the Queen of Sheba had passed that 



14 ^mhtx CStints. 

way and tossed her yellow feathers and her 
sun-bright velvets on the rocks, weary of 
the sunset color on her bonnets and her 
gowns. I sat for a half hour on the banks 
of the Mississippi where Minnehaha pours 
her tribute into its rushing tide, and for the 
first time in my life felt the dignity of the 
great father of waters. The current was so 
swift as it rushed by the bank that the 
big logs on their way to the horrible saw- 
mills farther down the shore were carried 
at the rate of ten miles an hour. There was 
no light in the water, any more than there is 
in the skin of a Concord grape, and yet there 
was the same sense of power that is con- 
veyed by a beacon on a hill or sunshine at 
its meridian. The fascination of that terri- 
ble on-sweeping tide was so great that I 
think I should have bounded onto a log and 
sailed away from home and country had I 
not turned my back and climbed the hill. 

^ sjt :fj jj{ 5Jj 

Then I found the soldiers' home, a gay 
place, bright with flowers and with serene 
old men who seemed only waiting for me to 
kneel before them to confer a benediction. 
I have never seen richer marigolds than 



^mhtv CStittts. 15 

were massed against the russet brown walls 
of the fine old buildings, nor fairer colonies 
of sweet fern and pansies than bordered the 
garden walks. A seat on the brow of the 
cliff commanded a view of the miles and 
miles of river, woodland and reedy shore. 
A crane soared into the evening sky and the 
sound of a boatman's song made vesper 
music. It was a grand place to sit and 
muse, but musings must end as well as day- 
light, and the ride back to the city in a noisy 
trolley broke off the thread for the time be- 
ing where it refused to join. 



»®e' 



I don't like full moons. I love wan and 
waning lights that half conceal and half 
reveal the beauties of the midnight world. 
Let others rave about the glory of over- 
full harvest moons that drip with luscious 
splendor, like some great juicy plum held 
carelessly by a thoughtless hand, but give 
to me the tender reserve of a moon from 
which time has stolen something of its 
youthful excess and meridian completeness, 
leaving a chastened beauty in its stead, like 



1 6 ^ttxhtx (flints. 

the smile on a face that has been washed by 
tears. 

In the same way I don't like people when 
they are in the full pomp of popularity and 
power. They are wearisome in their per- 
fection, like the undiminished splendor of 
a full moon in a cloudless sky. You long 
for something to be revealed; you would 
almost welcome a shadow to flit athwart 
the brightness that there might be the qual- 
ity of a fresh surprise in what was yet to 
be. 

jK * * 5|C Jic 

I don't like the word policy. The mo- 
ment you tell me that honesty is the best 
policy I am antagonized and almost prefer 
dishonesty. If you say to me that it is po- 
litic to be sweet-mannered I find myself 
shunning the appearance of hypocrisy 
which amiability of that sort too closely re- 
sembles. Tell me to be good for the sake 
of being good, and I will try right hard to 
behave myself, but tell me to be good be- 
cause somebody is watching me and it will 
be to my advantage to make a good im- 
pression, and I shall, ten to one, disgrace 
my lineage. The fact is that we build up 



I^mfe^v (MinU, 17 

character altogether too much after the 
fashion of a farmer who should plant his 
crops to please his neighbors, without con- 
sulting his own predilections or prejudices. 
'*I will raise buckwheat, not because I like 
buckwheat cakes, but because John Smith 
does, and I might drive a better bargain 
with John Smith some day should he 
chance to drop in and eat a hot buttered 
cake with me," is a no more senseless mode 
of procedure than it is for me to be honest 
and upright for no higher reason than be- 
cause I shall have a better standing in the 
community with that reputation tacked to 
me. 

Be good, be true, be pure, for your own 
sake, and for the sake of that companion 
you are going to spend eternity with — your 
own self. 

I am not an old woman, and yet I have 
lived long enough to see the almost utter 
decadence of some old-fashioned virtues. 
Take politeness, for instance — simple, old- 
fashioned politeness, that sprung from the 
heart like a rose from the root. How little 
we see of it nowadays. We see a great deal 
of what you call company manners, learned 



i8 ^mhzx t^XinU 

from a book of etiquette, perhaps, but the 
kindly spirit that seeks to make things 
pleasant for the humblest stranger, as well 
as for the guest who comes in the van of a 
trumpeting herald, is growing rarer each 
year. What if it does cost a little trouble to 
answer a question, or drop your task to di- 
rect a stranger; what is the use of being in 
the world at all if not to lend a helping hand 
where we can, and make folks happy. The 
courtesy that is only shown to people we 
know and to people who can respond per- 
haps in kind, is a spurious courtesy, as dif- 
ferent from old-time politeness as a pink 
made of muslin to a sweet carnation that 
grows in the garden and woos the bees. 



Let us give over clubs for awhile, and 
start a training school for mothers. We do 
not need anything so much in the world as 
good mothers. As well expect the house- 
keeper to turn out a batch of good cookies, 
if she makes them of sawdust and alum, as 
to expect the children to develop into good 
citizens without the right sort of mothers. 
The right sort of mother knows where her 
boy is all day long. She spends her time 



Jk.m1brje^; mints, 19 

entertaining him, rather than entertaining 
shallow-headed callers from everlasting to 
everlasting. She tells him stories, reads 
to him, and picks out tunes with him on the 
piano. She is "chummy" with him, too, and 
has his complete confidence. She doesn't 
allow her girls to go to the depot 10 see the 
trains come in, nor does she permit them to 
spend nights away from the guardianship of 
their own home. She is watchful at the same 
time that she is kind, loving always, but 
never languid in the performance of those 
duties which the vast responsibility of moth- 
erhood has laid upon her. Give us better 
mothers and the world will soon be full of 
better men and women. 



There is something a great deal worse 
than hard work, and that is laziness. The 
man who toils until the big muscles of his 
arm stand out like hams, and his broad 
shoulders are bent like the branches of a 
pine under the force of a strong wind, is a 
king among his kind compared to the shift- 
less do-nothing, between whose feet are 
spun the cobwebs of sloth, and within 



whose lily fingers nothing more burden- 
some than a cigar ever finds its way. Give 
me a blacksmith any day rather than a 
dude. Work is hard, and sometimes thank- 
less, but like tough metal, it is served to 
suit the needs of a strong man, and is better 
suited to that purpose than any entree or 
sweet confection. 



Some day there Is going to dawn a grand 
vacation morning for faithful toilers. No- 
body ever worked honestly here but what 
he shall find, somewhere, an adequate com- 
pensation. And how blessed the thought 
that it is ours by right. No charity about it, 
dear toiler. It is your rightful due, bought 
with heavy eyelids and aching joints and 
desolate years of comfortless toil. We shall 
never have to thumb over our wretched lit- 
tle accounts there, and sigh, and sigh again, 
that we cannot force two and two to equal 
six. We shall never have to buy cheap 
things any more, because our horrid little 
incomes won't cover anything finer than 
15-cent dress patterns. We shall never 
have to work like troopers all day, and not 
sleep forty winks all night, thinking over 



^mhzx 0SXitxts. 21 

how we shall buy shoes for all the kids on 
Saturday night, besides scoring accounts 
with the "butcher, the baker and the candle- 
stick maker." When that vacation morning- 
dawns we shall find ourselves numbered 
with those who carry banners and smite on 
golden harps because they have ''fought 
the good fight" and endured to the end 
without flunking. 

I wonder what is the matter with the men 
nowadays, and not only the men, but the 
women and the girls! They are all getting 
to be such tenderfeet! They can't endure 
as much as a kitten did a few generations 
ago. I have heard my grandmother tell 
how the boys used to chop wood and hoe 
corn ; drive the oxen and thrash oats ; walk 
fifteen miles a day — not on wagers, but do- 
ing chores and hustling work — and yet the 
average man of to-day kicks if the elevator 
breaks down and he has to walk up three 
flights of stairs! He is no account when 
it comes to an emergency. He puts on his 
overcoat in October, and wants the street 
car heated if he rides a dozen blocks. And 
the young women and the girls ! It used to 
be that a seventeen-year-old girl could run 



22 ^mhzx CHXiuts. 

a home, do a washing, and sit up until mid- 
night entertaining her beau in the front par- 
lor. I can remember the time when a poor 
man's daughter did the work and thought' 
it the natural thing to do. But nowadays, 
if a man has to work hard for the main- 
tenance of wife and daughters, they sit 
in the parlor and whine because servants 
are so incompetent in the kitchen. If by 
any manner of means they have to do the 
work it is a positively dreadful state of af- 
fairs, and they gain the commiseration of 
all their friends. 

The trouble is that we overdo the luxu- 
ries of life. We have too much to eat; we 
have too many clothes; we live in too fine 
houses. If we would simplify about one- 
third of life as we live it we would develop 
new sinew and new strength, both of soul 
and body. Kick the stoves out of the street 
cars, tear the listing out of the windows, 
and take life a little more au natural, and 
there would be more men and women, and 
fewer editions du luxe in the human fam- 
ily. 

^i M ;[; i\^ >;; 

The mild-mannered book agents (one of 
them was found in his lodging starved to 



^vxhj^x (flints. 23 

death the other day) come in for a large 
share of my sympathy nowadays. If there 
is anything worse than the vocation these 
poor fellows follow so grimly and so pluck- 
ily I don't want to know it. If you hand me 
a bitter drug and tell me there is one still 
more bitter it does not alleviate the un- 
pleasantness of the dose in hand. A grade 
lower than the book agent you find the itin- 
erant in feather dusters, matches, and 
whisk-brooms. Somehow these fellows al- 
ways start a tear somewhere in my sensi- 
bilities. Mark the stolid endurance of a 
joyless destiny that has drawn those set 
lines about the man's mouth and deepened 
his dago eyes with deeper shadows than 
Italy's skies ever brooded over. Do you oc- 
casionally sell any of your wares, you non- 
English, animal-browed son of Adam? 
Does anyone ever say "Good morning" to 
you or wish you god speed? Did anyone 
ever wish you a merry Christmas, or re- 
member your birthday, or look upon you 
with tender and forbearing eyes? Was there 
ever any respite from the horrible toting 
around of feather dusters which nobody 
wants? From door to door all day long — 
God only knows where at night — finally 



24 ^vxhzic stints, 

death, and a jolly round-up to a pauper's 
grave and then, what? Nobody knows, but 
you won't have to peddle feather dusters 
there — there is some comfort in that, isn't 
there, you product of the upper and nether 
millstones of ignorance and poverty? 

Fifty years ago there were no telephones, 
no call for typewriters nor stenographers. 
The avenues of women's advancement were 
not opened, because in those days there 
were no lines of advance. As well say that 
the freight cars in the shop are maliciously 
held back and their utility belittled, when 
the roadbed is not yet laid through the wide 
country they are intended to traverse as to 
say that woman has been kept back and de- 
prived of her rights until recent develop- 
ments have launched her as the new type. 
The cars are ready when the track is laid. 
The woman was on hand when the oppor- 
tunity presented. 

Because a *few women have battled for 
the day of their sex's recognition is no rea- 
son they should be especially glorified. As 
well laud the men for their eagerness to 



^vxhj^t CHXiuts. 25 

open the doors for the cars to run out of the 
shops. All their eagerness to do so was of 
no avail until the tracks were laid. 



There never was a man or woman yet but 
what was bound to rise and progress and 
climb, provided the yeast principle was in 
their souls. As well try to keep leavened 
dough flat as to keep a great soul down. 
Poverty never yet forged a chain strong 
enough to hold a man prone, provided he 
was bound to rise. 

:!; t' * -K J|i 

Did you ever see a big Cunarder at its 
dock? She lies still because the fires are 
low and the engines at rest. But do you im- 
agine there are iron links or steel grapples 
strong enough to hold her when the fur- 
nace fires are hot and the engines begin to 
throb? Anthony, nor Stanton, nor any 
other pioneer in the woman movement is 
to be thanked for woman's progress. When 
the opportunity came and the hour struck 
for sailing, she started for the wide sea. 

* 5|« * 5|; ^< 

Only now and then a public woman lends 
herself to methods so undignified as scold- 



26 ^vxhi^x (Stints. 

ing and vituperation. The day for that has 
happily gone by, and yet, do you think a 
congress of men would be tolerated who 
should fling out so bitterly against the 
women as some of our women, in talking 
about men, yet do? Do not men always do 
our sex honor, sometimes with a lavish ex- 
cess far beyond our merits? Have we not 
yet to complain of any lack of courtesy ac- 
corded to women as wives, mothers, sisters 
and sweethearts, where intelligent and hon- 
orable men are met together for the making 
of speeches? The lake would not be too 
wet a place to drive that convention of men 
into who should assail women as I have 
heard nice, motherly appearing women as- 
sail the men in ''hen" conventions. He is 
a "brute," a ''tyrant" and a "monster." He 
is "unclean," "despotic" and "impure." 
Now, all that is wrong, and sensible women 
know it. 

There are bad men; there are bad wom- 
en. There are peaches blown in the bud 
with worm-blight, but does that condemn 
all the orchards? I am tired of the attempt 
to blacken the character of the everyday, 
average man. He is a "brick" in business, 



in social life and in love, and I like him. I 
thank him for doing so much of Hfe's un- 
comfortable work for me, and if he will be 
so kind, I am perfectly willing that he should 
go on building fires, killing chickens and 
casting my vote at the polls while I am 
kept safe and clean behind the scenes. 



I wish that this old pen of mine could win 
a magic power from somewhere to exploit 
itself in behalf of sunshine-making rather 
than trouble-breeding. The half of us spend 
our lives incubating sorrow, as evil birds 
brood goblin eggs. We fume and fret over 
annoyances and cares that never would 
chip their shells if we didn't hatch them. I 
wish I could persuade the mother who 
thinks every time the baby sneezes, or John- 
nie gets his feet wet, or Mamie has the sore 
throat that the funeral bell is already toll- 
ing, to trust God more and not be such an 
unbeliever in Providence. If you expect 
evil, evil is bound to come just as these 
summer evenings bats will enter if you put 
a Hght in the window for them. What you 
dread you will surely draw, and don't you 
forget it. The man who goes out gunning 



28 ^mhzx CItJttxts. 

for hawks will see hawks. A thousand 
thrushes might sing to him under the clear 
blue sky, but he is after hawks, and he'll 
find them, too. 



There is no doubt but what there is sor- 
row in the world and that somewhere on 
the road death crouches like a sleeping lion. 
But why shall we needlessly hunt for sor- 
row, and die a thousand times before our 
time for fear of the lion that won't waken 
until we reach him? 

Who are the happy? I look about me 
sometimes and try to answer the question. 
First I take the married folks. Are they 
happy? Not one out of twenty. Why? 
Because they exact too much. Whisky it- 
self has not wrought the marital woe that 
exaction has. Matrimony is a chain. You 
may pad it with velvet or wreathe it with 
flowers, yet it remains a chain. There is 
unwisdom in pulling it too tightly. As long 
as the slave does not feel his fetters he can 



^mhzx (Mints, 29 

be comparatively happy, but let the steel 
corrode his flesh and he becomes aware of 
his thraldom. 

When a woman goes through her hus- 
band's pockets on the sly she pulls at his 
chain. When she sheds tears because he 
walks downtown with a pretty neighbor she 
pulls at his chain. When she sits up to 
scold because he comes home late she pulls 
at his chain. Such things may not be agree- 
able for her to bear, but there are better 
ways of holding a man than hauling him 
along at the end of a chain. If I were a 
married woman and had a husband who 
neglected me, do you know what I would 
do? I would begin all over again and lay 
siege to his heart. I would make myself so 
charming that before he knew it he would 
fall in love with me for the second time. 
There is no use denying it, men are queer. 
They grow tired of what they possess and 
are always reaching out after the fruit that 
hangs high. There is something in a man's 
nature that leads him to be always on the 
lookout for fresh conquests. From the 
time he begins to drive his dog in harness, 
through the stage of liking to break colts, 
all along the era of love-making, and away 



30 ^mhzx (Minis. 

down to old age, man wishes to be master 
of the situation and lord of a new possession. 
He loves his wife, no doubt, but after a few 
years she becomes an old story, and he be- 
gins to yearn for something newer and 
fresher. He doesn't mean to be exactly un- 
faithful, but he is like a man who leaves his 
Bible untouched to read the daily papers. 
The news is what he covets; the plan of re- 
demption will do to save his soul and to base 
his hopes of heaven upon^ but the columns 
of the 2-penny paper hold the current news, 
and that is what he demands for daily needs. 
If, then, when your husband is taken by the 
pretty looks of another woman you begin 
to "go her one better" on the question of 
beauty, you can keep him, provided he is 
worth the keeping — sometimes I doubt it. 
If she has pretty hair sit up all night to 
twist yours in paper, buy a new iron and 
spend many a golden hour getting up your 
own curls. If she has a lovely complexion, 
walk, a mile a day and eat nothing but rye 
biscuits to freshen up your own roses. If 
she wears pretty gowns, get prettier ones 
of your own, even if you have to sandbag 
some one to get the money. Never give in 
and you'll win the day. But if you sit down 



^rahj^v (Mints. 31 

and mope, with straight locks and red eyes, 
your husband will feel his chain to such an 
extent that he will run to the nearest black- 
smith to get it filed off. 

^ ;}i ^ ^ sjc 

Sometimes I think there is a deeper les- 
son in such plays as "The Crust of Society" 
than we women perceive. Why do hght 
women succeed in holding men as they do? 
It is because they take such pains to make 
the best of their beauty, because they are 
so daintily immaculate and charming. If 
good women were oftener fascinating they 
would gain a new empire in the world. 
Look about you at the nice little wives who 
do nothing but make apple-butter, heel 
stockings, seat pantaloons, and bake bis- 
cuit. They never rise out of their environ- 
ment. They talk about nothing but domes- 
tic matters and hired help, with a sprink- 
ling of physical ailments. The result is that 
they are less fascinating than so many set- 
ting hens. Now my advice to such women 
is, stretch your time so as to admit the op- 
portunity to increase your fund of informa- 
tion a bit. Tuck the old stockings into the 
fire and get new ones if you can't get a 
chance otherwise to read the latest books, 



3:2 ^tahj^x e^Xinis. 

attend the bright plays, travel awhile, and 
keep young and fresh in soul and body. 
The man who is satisfied with a housekeep- 
er for a wife ought to have married out of 
an employment bureau. Respectability is 
awfully tame as it is typified by half the 
women. An inhabitant from another star 
visiting this world and sampling its human 
products might judge of them, I think, 
something as a buyer might go through a 
wine merchant's stock. 

"Here," says the salesman, "are our do- 
mestic wines ; • they retail at 40 cents a bot- 
tle." 

"Forty cents a bottle? Too cheap! No 
flavor! No sparkle! Give me the ^Green 
Seal.' I would rather pay high for what I 
drink, even if it goes to my head." 

The flat stupidity of ultra-well-behaved 
people make them a drug on the market, 
even at 40 cents a bottle ! 

* * -^ ^ >ic 

Not long ago I was spending the evening 
with one of the best women in the world. 
She is a church member, and a regular four- 
in-hand as to the Lord's work. We sat and 
talked by the light of a dim lamp, the chim- 
ney of which looked as though it had never 



^mhj^x flints, 33 

been polished. A boy of about 12 years of 
age was trying to read by the poor light, 
but gave it up at last and went off to bed 
because he had nothing else to do. I wanted 
to say to that good woman, "My dear, lay 
aside your Bible to-morrow morning long 
enough to clean your lamp. One of the 
chief attractions of a saloon or any other 
iniquitous resort is the brilliancy of its il- 
lumination. Nobody ever turns in to take 
a drink at a dark and dingy place, do they? 
You want to set right about making home 
attractive for that growing boy of yours, 
and you will do well to begin at the lamps." 

Another place where I went is presided 
over by an elder sister. She is the most 
dainty and immaculate of housekeepers and 
none enter or leave her home save with 
words of praise upon their lips. But there 
are never any playthings around; no nails, 
no hammer, nor precious tools dear to boy- 
ish hearts. No chair trains, nor steamboats 
made out of overturned tables. When her 
little brothers play they have to go out on 
the street — the house is too pretty to be 
turned over to children. 

"Little woman," I want to say to this dear 
3 



34 Jimftfjev flints, 

girl, "turn right about face now, and start 
a new deal. Let the boys have all the good 
time they can in the old home, before they 
are driven too far away to find the road 
back again to the shelter. Put a biUiard 
table in the basement and a gymnasium 
somewhere under the roof, and let the little 
fellows sail in. Time will come, perhaps, 
when you will see the mistake you have 
made in keeping the place too orderly and 
too immaculate. God grant it may not be 
too late." 

I wonder if the time will ever come when 
we shall learn not to judge by appearance? 
When we shall be wise enough to look for 
the circumstance that colors the fact? A 
dozen times a day this thought occurs to 
me, until I feel tempted to hire the Audi- 
torium and preach to every man, woman 
and child who can be entreated to hear me 
the supreme folly of hasty judgment. Take 
a case in instance, and as I record it I offer 
up a prayer that it may be read by the right 
party. Not long since I received a charm- 
ing letter from a stranger inviting me to 
lunch somewhere away on the Rock Island 
suburban line. According to the practice of 



^mhj^x (founts, 35 

years I mislaid the letter, or stuck it away 
in a pigeon-hole from which only the pro- 
cesses of time shall ever dislodge it. Of 
course, judging from my silence, the lady 
who sent me the pleasant invitation thinks 
me discourteous, rude — everything that I 
try not to be. Otherwise she would write 
again, giving me the benefit of a doubt. 
Probably I shall never be able to vindicate 
myself, and whenever the name "Amber" 
floats through that little home it will leave 
a trail of smoke ! This is only one of many 
instances of daily occurrence wherein a 
charitable judgment would bring about a 
satisfactory explanation. More lovers have 
been parted and more estrangements 
brought about by lost letters and addresses 
than by any other method known to the evil 
one. Never believe ill of anyone until you 
face the fact bodily, with no go-betweens oi 
letters, silence or contradictory evidence to 
bias your judgment. 



m 



Bargain! How I hate the word! And 
this is an age of bargains. We cheapen 
everything and call it a benefit to mankind. 



36 ^mhzx CHXitxts* 

It is not conducive to the proper spirit of 
ambition to cheapen wares of any kind, eith- 
er spiritual or temporal. The moment 
you begin to bargain for a ware that mo- 
ment a something sordid enters your soul 
which the king's soap can never eradicate. 
Enhance your values rather than cheapen 
them. Render it worth something to at- 
tain a prize, and urge a man to effort rather 
than to ease. If there isn't enough vim in 
a man to pay an equivalent for what is fine, 
let him go without. Roses, sonnets, moons 
and dewfalls are nature's gifts to man, but 
if nature should begin to dicker about her 
roses and her dew the charm of each would 
be sullied. Either be bountiful as nature 
is and give good things freely, or be just 
and make men strive that they may appre- 
ciate. The moment you say to a man I will 
give you for a cent what has cost me lo 
cents to furnish, you not only cheapen your 
goods but you cheapen art, and, what is 
worse still, you cheapen yourself. I would 
rather be found robbing birds' nests than 
hunting bargains. 

When I think of all the good times there 
are in this world which you and I might be 



^mhtx flints. 37 

in if we only had the good sense to avail 
ourselves of our opportunities, I am inclined 
to think that we are not to be commiserated 
so much after all if we fail to have our good 
time oftener. 

Take this glorious week of weather, for 
instance, out in the country. If the oppor- 
tunity were offered you, suddenly, to leave 
your city home and settle yourself for a 
fortnight in close vicinity to the woods and 
the beautiful lake country, would you avail 
yourself of the chance? Oh, no; you would 
raise a thousand objections, and before you 
were done with them the opportunity would 
be gone like one of the foam wreaths out 
yonder on the waves. You would have no 
nice clothes (I am talking to the women), or 
you would not be able to put aside your 
household duties, or the children would be 
needing you at night to help with their les- 
sons, or your husband's people would be 
coming to town to do their shopping. Some 
trivial thing or other would be sure to inter- 
fere with your outing until your chance for 
deliverance from the grind of daily care 
would be gone like the wind from the pop- 
lars. 



38 ^mhtx (Stints. 

If one sat on shore and waited for some 
trig little boat from off the sea to sail up to 
the strand, draw one into it by some method 
of afifinity unknown to science and carry 
one of¥ to Spain, don't you think one would 
grow gray-headed and wan before the voy- 
age commenced? It is just as silly, and just 
as hopeless, to wait for some full-rigged op- 
portunity to draw near and force you on 
board. Without some effort on your part 
you will never set sail. You will never go 
anywhere if you do not arise and go. Leave 
things undone, if need be. Bother the 
duties! Shoot the obligations! Let their 
father help the children! Just you get up 
and go! 

It matters little how I got there ! Do you 
suppose anybody will stop us, when after 
long journeying we reach heaven's country, 
with an inquiry as to the route we took? 
No, my dear; we may take the Baptist wa- 
ter voyage, the Methodist limited, or the 
elevated road of the high church — it will 
make precious little matter when once we 
stand on the margin of the silver tide or 
stoop to gather our first asphodel. 



^nxhj^ic stints. 39 

I have been here three days — that is, I 
had been when the summons came that 
called me home. Oh, but three hundred 
years would not be too long to remain in so 
beautiful a country. The poplar trees have 
turned to jonquils and all the maples into 
ragged carnations, spilling fire for dew. 
Every instant I expect to see the sky 
shrivel in the fervent glow of a heatless con- 
flagration, and, looking through, see Mary 
swinging her Hly bough about the heads of 
dreaming seraphs. Wild talk, perhaps you 
think, but just slip your cable and run away 
into the woods and meadowlands one of 
these glorious October mornings and see if 
I paint the picture too highly. 



Oh, worry, worry! You are responsible 
for more gray hairs and wrinkles than age. 
You have penciled more brows with tell-tale 
lines than years have ever thought of doing. 
Shall I tell you what I think about the dis- 
position to worry? It reminds me of what 
it would be if a company of convivial souls 
should sit down to a banquet and fall to 
weeping and wailing because this time next 
year they may go to bed hungry. For 



40 Jimlb^jev stints. 

heaven's sake be thankful for to-day's din- 
ner and enjoy it. Let to-morrow's dinner 
rest in the hands of the gods; they'll be sure 
to wheel things into line if you trust 'em. 
Do your duty. Grasp your end of the line 
and pull. Accomplish all you can, and never 
fret. When providence sees such a fellow 
on the road providence is sure to harness up 
and meet him on the way with a two-seated 
surrey and a lap robe. Sure as fire is fire 
and frost is frost, heaven helps the brave 
and piles stumbling blocks in the way of 
the cowardly hearted who complain over 
nothing. 



It was long past the dinner hour and the 
restaurant was deserted. I staggered in 
with my bundles and asked for tea and trim- 
mings. The waiter who responded was very 
straight, very black, and very attentive, I 
had but to look "spoon," "napkin," "salt," 
and he produced the same. He relieved me 
of my cloak and kept an eye on my slippery 
bundles as they skated from my lap across 
the shining floor. I began to feel that I 



Jimtrjenj (flints. 41 

must tip that waiter, or go out into the night 
branded as a skinflint. 

So I opened my purse and took out a 

coin. It was Canadian, and I had exper- 

, ienced many trials with it. I had carried it 

about with me for months and nobody 

would accept it in change, 

*^T'his waiter," thought I, "is a man, and 
consequently has more nerve than a meek, 
down-trodden woman such as L To him I 
will give the Canadian coin as a tip and let 
him try his luck." So I sHpped it imder- 
neath my plate and rose to depart. As I 
neared the cashier's desk I found the 
cashier had stepped out for an instant, so I 
stood impatiently awaiting change. Down 
stepped my "nervy" waiter. "I can ac- 
commodate you," said he, and changed my 
dollar, handing me back my Canadian coin. 
I was so stunned by its reappearance, and 
also by the strategic workings of that wait- 
er's giant intellect, that I made no murmur, 
but turned upon my heel and strode forth 
into the night. That waiter will make his 
mark yet. Such smartness merits recogni- 
tion. I feel like a feeble, commonplace clod 
when I meet such meteoric intellects as his, 
and humbly creep to my own place among 



42 ^mh)^ (Mints. 

the dullards and laggards of earth born 
without mercantile instincts. 



Once, in the long ago years, when every 
bird that sang was a thrush, and every day 
that dawned was overshone by sparkling 
suns, I was one of a party of voyagers down 
the Pacific Ocean to Santa Cruz. 

After a night of storm there came a soft, 
gray dawn filled with perfume. From some 
out of sight and inexpHcable quarter an 
odor as of a rose garden wet with dew over- 
brimmed the air. There was no land in 
sight, or at least there was but a faint haze 
of blue cliffs, which might be clouds or 
might be hills, and yet our senses were en- 
wrapped in balm, and every breath we drew 
was a dreamy delight. 

•For an hour or more we sailed across the 
slow-illuming sea before the ship's prow 
was brought to land and we were allowed 
to take a run over the fields during the pro- 
cess of fruit embarkation. A little way 
back from the lifted barrier of the sea cliff 
we found the source of that delicious, flow- 
er-scented morning air, a plantation of 



^ttxhj^x (flints. 43 

roses, far as the eye could reach. Nothing 
in all the enchanted world about us but 
roses. The thorn-set Cherokee, bedecked 
with creamy petals like crushed and crum- 
pled gold, the superb damask with its inner 
heart of flame, the stately white rose, a drift 
of snow caught and upheld by a wand of 
green, the blush rose with its memories of 
long ago, the button rose in its trim little 
jacket of verdure, the Baltimore belle with 
haughty head held high, the brilliant prairie 
queen with its soulless splendor. Every 
kind of rose one ever heard of, or handled, 
or loved, was there in such countless num- 
bers that although one tarried to pick the 
live-long day the colony of blooms would 
never be perceptibly decreased. And from 
this garden there stole forth on every breeze 
the aroma that had made the dawn so beau- 
tiful and greeted us far out at sea, before 
the sight of land had gladdened our eyes. 

In recalHng the incident my heart quick- 
ens with a fond regret for the sight once 
more of those wind-swept acres, haunted 
through silver dawn, and golden noon, and 
dewy dusk, with humming birds and honey 
bees. Unvisited by me forevermore, the 
frail things blow and wither and droop upon 



44 J^mXrjev dlints. 

their stately stems throughout the circuit of 
the constant years. Unplucked by me, the 
sweet buds look from behind their lattices of 
green, like ladies at their window-blinds, 
and waft their odorous breath like smiles 
upon the air. 

I shall never see that land of flowers 
again, perhaps, but no barren lot in life, no 
deprivation and no future pain shall ever 
rob me of the memory of that long ago 
morning spent among the roses. 

It is many years no doubt since some lov- 
ing hand planted the first bush in that plat 
of ground. Perhaps it was a young wife, 
herself transplanted to a pioneer home, who 
amid a gentle rain of home-sick tears set 
out the little rose slips brought from the 
dear New England home garden, and with 
an aching heart and a zealous care watched 
them multiply and spread from year to year. 
Each season a host of new shoots appeared, 
developed quickly under those balmy skies, 
until the profusion overran all limits and 
changed the wilderness into a garden of de- 
light. The enclosure came to be looked upon 
as a place set apart, a spot wherein to grow 
roses for the mere joy their beauty and their 
perfume might yield. The plowman who 



^mlatTC mints. 45 

should seek to devastate that plat of verdure, 
or the farmer who might he tempted by love 
of lucre to turn it into profit by uprooting 
the rose tendrils and filling their places with 
grain or garden produce, would be regarded 
as a desecrater of consecrated ground. The 
roses long since pre-empted a claim on that 
acre of land, and woe to the vandal hand 
that should seek to evict them. No other 
flower grew within that garden place; no 
vines, however fruitful, were allowed to 
cumber the ground where all day long and 
through the hush of starry Southern nights 
drifted the loosened petals of ten thousand 
roses waving their languid heads in sweet 
content. The space wherein they grew was 
a spot of earth set apart from sordid uses 
for the reign of beauty, purity and perfume. 
And so I think in this life of ours are the 
sheltered gardens where girlhood buds and 
blossoms, and casts, in time, the benignant 
influence of unsullied womanhood. What- 
soever things are lovely and without guile 
should environ that spot where young wom- 
anhood holds her gracious reign. Whatso- 
ever influences are pure and precious should 
emanate from thence, so that away out on 
the stormy and restless reaches of life, we 



46 ^mhj^ic (Stints, 

who wander and are sore beset by sin and 
sorrow shall be comforted and made to re- 
joice unwitting, as our spirits catch the per- 
fume from those fair gardens that lie along 
the Eastward shore of time's restless sea. 

See to it then, O, young girls, whoever 
and wherever you be, that read this little 
sketch of mine to-night, that you set to 
work planting rose slips in the neglected 
gardens of your souls. Abjure unlovely 
things. Stop being a little bit bold and 
common. Begin to flaunt less and bloom 
more. Do lovely things whenever you have 
the chance, and the chances lie thicker 
along the way, let me tell you, than you 
imagine. Trifling courtesies, off-hand ser- 
vices, gentle words and pleasant glances will 
start the roses growing. If you have been 
in the habit of powdering your faces and 
chewing gum and laughing at smutty jokes, 
and flirting on the streets, and lingering 
around depots and in public places; if you 
have allowed yourself to grow a trifle fast 
in a fast city and in a fast age, turn right 
about face now and begin to be womanly 
and modest and reserved and sweet. Faith- 
ful endeavor will soon bring the perfume 
into your life, and evolve within you a rare 



^ttxhzx (founts. 47 

and lovely womanhood, even as from the 
most delicate cuttings are produced in time 
the most perfect coronals of bloom. 



Did you ever think that it is not he who 
reaps the harvest who is responsible for it? 
It is the sower of the seed, the instigator of 
the small beginning, who is accountable. 
The cross word you or I may say this morn- 
ing may not produce its harvest of ill-tem- 
per at once, but after we have left the house 
and gone about our daily business, the 
wrangle of the home life is but the resultant 
harvest of the seed we dropped from an 
idle tongue. I wish some thought of this 
kind could keep us serene and sweet! I 
wish there was anything short of a change 
of heart and saving grace that could keep 
back the bitter word or the sarcastic speech 
when both are so surely the seeds of a 
wretched harvest. If somebody will tell 
me how to live one day without dropping 
a single word to be regretted at bed time, I 
will send that person a white hyacinth in a 
silver pot! 



48 ^mhzx flints. 



CHAPTER II. 

There was once a Brave Soul set out on 
its journey through the world. Panoplied 
with the glory of that radiant land that lies 
the thither side the sunrise sky, the Brave 
Soul started on its wanderings as a para- 
dise bird darts from a thicket of tropical 
bloom, or as a fountain seeks the upper air 
from its bed of velvet mosses. There was 
no shadow on its beauty, no undertone of 
sadness in its song. Around about it the 
beautiful low lands of childhood lay, rimmed 
softly with azure hills above it, the un- 
clouded sunshine rippled like a golden 
flood, and in all the land there was no sound 
of sorrow, nor frost of remorseful complaint. 
The Brave Soul flew with a strong wing, 
nor stopped its pinion until, the vales of 
childhood passed, it hovered a space above 
the hills that girdle the land of youth. Upon 
every tree that cast its verdure across the 
songful slopes grew fruits that mocked in 



^rahj^x CdXints. 49 

luscious beauty the apples of Hesperides 
and the grapes of sunny Spain. But stoop- 
ing to gather and eat of the fruit it turned 
to substanceless moisture on the Hps, or 
faded at the first touch of the eager hand. 
And the Brave Soul, nothing troubled, flew 
on until it passed out of the sunshine into 
a region of wandering lights and winds. 
There was restlessness in the air like the 
passage of an unheralded storm, and in the 
tops of the mighty trees a host of dark- 
winged birds sat ever complaining to the 
waning sun and to a wan and wasted moon. 
But the Brave Soul took no account of 
throbbing storm nor of chattering bird of 
evil omen, but flew on its way upheld by 
the wings of an undaunted courage. And 
as the way stretched farther and farther 
from the dells and dales of childhood's land 
of delight the clouds thickened between the 
Brave Soul's steadfast eye and the blue 
above, and now and again the cry of a hun- 
gry beast of prey smote the ear from im- 
penetrable thickets that belted the lengthen- 
ing way. In the path of the Brave Soul a 
spirit of evil, called the Demon of Unfaith, 
often contested for right of way and dark- 
ened the air with its somber visage. But 



50 Jimfejeic (Mints. 

the Brave Soul trembled not, nor yet was 
dismayed, but singing ever of the land from 
whence it came, kept flying straight towards 
Heaven. It saw the pitiless storm of life 
beat down the faint blessing of hope, so 
that the golden fruitage lay like withered 
stubbles beneath the darkened harvest 
moon. It saw untimely frosts descend upon 
the vineyards where the purple vintage of 
joy and faith and peace smiled back to the 
constant sun, and lo! the grapes were 
blighted on the branch, and the wine of con- 
solation ran no more from within the 
presses. It saw the desert spaces over 
which a vertical sunglare beat remorseless- 
ly, and within whose limits not even a grass 
blade waved to the passage of the sterile 
wind. But with all, the Brave Soul kept its 
bright spirit undaunted, and evermore flew 
singing straight to the bosom of infinite 
love. But finally there came a day when 
even the Brave Soul drooped on broken 
wing, and over its fainting head the shadow 
of voiceless and comfortless despair fell 
heavily. For when it came to the acre of 
the dead, sown thick with graves and wept 
upon forevermore by human tears, in that 
abode of desolation it saw its mate flutter 



^mhtv ((^Xinis, 51 

like a loosened leaf from a wind-startled 
branch. And although it tarried in its flight 
and called with an exceeding mournful cry, 
for alas! the cry came from the depths of a 
breaking heart, the silent mate lifted never 
again its quiet wing, nor looked with yearn- 
ing love from out the shut lids of its tender 
eyes. So here in the domain of death, 
through which all souls, both ignoble and 
brave, must pass on their flight towards 
heaven, even the Brave Soul tarried and 
could not arise and press onward for many 
and many a day. The distant land of Para- 
dise seemed less than nothing to the Brave 
Soul while its gentle mate lay pulseless be- 
neath the shadow of death's dark wing, and 
although the bright ones gathered in the 
western sky in flocks like clouds of ruby and 
violet and gold, the Brave Soul neither 
looked nor Hstened beyond the confines of 
the land of graves, but fluttered like a 
wounded lark entangled in the meshes of 
the summer grass. Perhaps there came a 
time when the Brave Soul resumed its flight 
towards heaven, but when last I passed 
that way its wing was wet with earth dews, 
and the gaze of its once clear and fearless 



52 ^mlbzx flints. 

eye could lift itself no higher than the turf- 
covered verge of a newly-made grave. 

Where has spring gone? The other day 
she was here in the glow of a robin's breast 
and the gush of its liquid song. She loit- 
ered about the gardens and left a foot-print 
in the crocus beds. She drifted down the 
wind, a soft cloud for her boat, a strip of 
blue cloud for her pennon. She met us in 
the morning and laughed in our face with 
radiant sunshine. She parted from us at 
evening leaning over the parapet of gold in 
the western sky, and throwing us a balmy 
kiss from clouds like rosy finger-tips; but 
she has vanished utterly from our midst, 
and a vixenish spell of weather is abroad 
that pinches our fingers and scolds like a 
shrew. But drink of the wine of frosty 
mornings I pray you while you may, for 
when dog-days come and we wilt and with- 
er, and simmer and droop, won't we long 
for the zest of a frosty flagon again? By 
the way, what a thankless, grumbling set 
of mortals we are. Never a spring comes 
around but a wail ascends to the very stars 
that the late frosts have surely nipped the 



^mhzx flints. 53 

fruit. If a season's rainfall exceeds the av- 
erage, tfien the wet has rotted the potatoes ; 
if there is no rain, but a chain of bright and 
cloudless summer days slips along the 
strand of weather, then the drouth has 
killed the crops. When the autumn rolls 
round the early frosts are sure (in our croak- 
ing estimation) to blight the yield of fruit, 
or deferred cold is the attributed reason for 
malaria and unhealth. To find a man per- 
fectly content with what nature gives him 
in the shape of weather would be to find a 
greater marvel than any dime museum 
boasts. 



I have sometimes thought that if the Lord 
means to destroy a man he first makes him 
moderately rich — gives him just enough 
money to turn his head, and then leaves him 
to his own devices. What such a man is not 
capable of in the way of meanness is not 
worth mentioning. A millionaire snob is 
bad enough, although he is of full growth 
and can be tolerated, but the consequentiali- 
ty that stalks up and down the earth like a 
bantam in the midst of eagles and fills the 
air with feathers and squeaks is a sight to 



54 ^mht^ (Stints. 

make men weary. Do you not, all of you, 
know just such people? Some of them live 
in the suburbs of large cities because rents 
are cheap, not because they have any love 
for pure air and nature. They form them- 
selves into cliques and call themselves the 
best society, when they know no more about 
the "best" than a city alderman knows about 
the court of the king. They apply the 
standard of the purse, never that of the 
brain. They will frown upon a young man 
who publicly associates with anyone out of 
their "set," but overlook the fault if he 
ruins a poor girl quietly and without expos- 
ure. Breach of purity is more readily con- 
doned by them than breach of etiquette. 
They tolerate dudes so everlastingly fragile 
of brain and limb that they ought to be 
kept in cotton like Florida orange-buds, yet 
, look with disfavor upon young men and 
women who work for a living. They pat- 
ronize the arts in the same way that a but- 
terfly patronizes a rose. They sing a little 
and dance a great deal, and talk together 
with about the same display of wisdom and 
wit that characterize the council of a herd 
of sheep or of a flock of crows. They look 
down upon people who are not willing to 



^mhtx flints. 55 

go through Hfe Hke peas in a pod or like 
tallow-dips in a mold. Their enthusiasms 
are well enough so far as they go, but they 
never unfurl more than a square inch of 
bunting at a time. Their value in this wide 
world of action is very much what the value 
of tin soldiers would be on a field of battle 
— very neat, very shining and correct, but 
nothing but toys after all. 

They have enough money to keep horses 
and carriages, but whom do they take to 
ride? The poor and the sick, the discour- 
aged and the forlorn? Not to any monoton- 
ous extent. Their favors are not given with- 
out due regard to future returns. They do 
generous things in the same way that they 
give wedding presents — with an eye to 
value received. 

If there is a large family of daughters de- 
pendent upon one of these moderately 
affluent papas, they toil not, and never, by 
any manner of means, spin out the solution 
of the problem of their own support. They 
pinch and turn and fight like cats behind 
the scenes to secure new frocks and jewels, 
but carry themselves in public like 
princesses of a long line of ancestral kings. 
They beat down the wages of those who 



56 ^mhtx CHlittts. 

serve them, and run up big bills at the stores 
for tormented papa to pay, but as for lend- 
ing a hand to pull their over-burdened bark 
up stream, they would sooner die. They 
never carry bundles, and the sight of an- 
other woman doing so kindles their in- 
finitesimal spark of humor into the flame of 
feeble hilarity. They might meet a fellow- 
creature on a plank in the middle of the sea, 
or in an oasis of Sahara, and never presume 
to speak without formal introduction. Oh, 
I am tired of talking about them! If I was 
the wind Td blow them away like dandelion 
disks. Empty-headed, with hearts of steel 
and bowels of brass 1 May the Lord who al- 
lows such shoddy folks to live appoint them 
a corner to themselves in the "sweet by-and- 
by." 

Did you ever stop to think what would 
become of us all if some day the world 
should crash of¥ the track like a freight run- 
ning on lightning express time? It would 
be something like the air in the immediate 
vicinity of a threshing machine, I'm think- 
ing, with stars for chaff and solar system 
for dust. But then the beauty of it would 
be that we would all go together. The lone- 



^mhzx mints. 57 

liness of individual dying is the worst feat- 
ure of death to me. The idea of taking the 
trip all alone seems so dreary. But to go 
out of the lighted depot into the darkness 
of the night 15y the car-load is not so bad. 
Ah, well! they go fast, these years of life, 
don't they? And they will go faster and 
faster yet, like horses nearing home, until 
the footman shall descend from his box and 
politely hold the door for the restless inside 
passenger to alight at the journey's end. 
All right, old fellow, the journey has been 
an up-hill one at best, and the dust has got- 
ten well into our eyes — pray God it has not 
gotten into our hearts — and many of us are 
glad to rest awhile, and after — ? 



Have you ever, amidst the stir and bustle 
of busy morning, when cocks were crowing 
and cattle lowing, when the sound of labor 
awoke upon the air from its many sources, 
and there was no silence anywhere in Nat- 
ure's busy realm, caught the surpassing 
sweetness of a sudden bird song, shrill and 
sweet, yet full of strange and mystic sad- 
ness? Such a song makes itself vocal in my 
heart to-night and I know full well its echo 



58 ^ttxhzx flints, 

will find a loHgment in many another breast 
than my own. A song for the vanished 
one ! A song for the spirit that like a lark, 
uprose from out these low earth-grasses and 
winged its flight through heaven's portals! 
A song for the child we loved whom God 
loved too, and whom He has recalled to be 
with Him in Paradise ! A song for the eyes 
that shone, now drooped forever beneath 
their soft dark lids ! A song for the golden 
hair, for the sweet white brow, for the frank 
young mouth, where "smiles lit outward 
their own sighs!" A song for the nestling 
cheek so soft and warm, for the rose-leaf 
touch of the little hands, for the restless feet 
so strangely, terribly still! A song for the 
sweet dead breast whereon dead lilies lie! 
A song for courage and strength and trust 
to outlive our loneliness and uplift our 
heads again from the bitter storm ! A song 
for sweet assurance surely given, that 

"Love, that else might fade. 
By Death immortal made^ — 
Spurns at the grave, leaps to the welcoming 

skies. 
And burns a steadfast star to steadfast 

eyes." 



J^mlrjeie miuU. 59 

There was the usual manifestation of 
alarm as the fire patrol came darting down 
the street to the tune of clanging bells. 
People drew out of the way, and a few tim- 
orous women screamed and sought shelter 
in stairways. With a mad pace like a colt 
let loose in the clover the big red wagons 
swung down the avenue and halted before 
a building that was smoldering with barri- 
caded fire. From every window gray chif- 
fon, deepening into black, floated, and there 
was a sultriness in the air like the portent of 
a tempest. 

'^Let us stop and watch this fire,^' said the 
poet, "it is bound to be a good one. So 
much smoke as that fathers a big blaze." 

So we stopped close to one of the hose 
carts and waited. 

Ladders were run up the wall, like wood- 
en webs, to be quickly mounted by brave 
men who played with danger as kittens play 
with yarn. More wagons dashed up the 
street, and the air grew full of clamor as a 
buckwheat field of bees. Hose after hose 
was turned upon the building that still 
belched smoke from its many windows, and 
stood up gaunt and gray against the illu- 
mination of the night. Suddenly a tongue 



6o ^ttxhj^Tc (fIXints. 

of flame lapped over the roofs edge, and 
was as quickly withdrawn. Then from the 
topmost peak a flag of fire floated as though 
swung by a hellish hand, and swift to obey 
the summons, the night filled with a crim- 
son host. It halted a moment, seeking a 
foothold, then with a shriek noiseless to our 
ears but vocal no doubt in those regions 
where fire is king, the flaming legion scat- 
tered like a colony of leaves in a gale, and 
instantly the night was full of disintegrated 
fire, as a turnpike fills with wayside dust. 
There was a blizzard at that moment in hell, 
and fire fell for snow; there was a shower 
just then along the banks of the Stygian 
River, with sparks for rain. The color of 
tulips, tawny cupped and filled to the brim 
with ruby light; the delicious mingling of 
flaming yellow and sea-depth green met in 
these flames that caught the night in their 
embrace and flung aside its robe of dark- 
ness. Hurrah! and huzzah! seemed voiced 
upon those tongues that licked up the lesser 
lights of the town as a tiger laps blood', until 
it seemed as though a tornado of sound, like 
passion in a mute's breast, shook at the 
very center of the voiceless clamor. "This 
is splendid!'^ cried the poet, and stepping 



^mhzic (flints. 6i 

aside bought out the stock of a flower 
vendor that we might pin roses upon our 
gowns in remembrance of a half hour's tar- 
rying in the court of the king. 

Sometimes I have moods when I think 
the most blessed lot that could overtake a 
self-respecting woman would be to be shut 
up in a dungeon and guarded by a polite 
keeper. There is something so revolting 
to me in this mad rush of the fin de siecle 
woman for recognition! Great heavens, 
my dear, haven't we had all the recogni- 
tion necessary? Must we be carried along, 
like the fly on the wheel of the chariot, until 
there is only a memory left in the heart of 
man of such women as that grand saint in 
New England, whom, by the way, I don't 
know that I ever told you of. She didn't 
make much of a record outside of her home 
while she lived, but I think no sweeter ser- 
mon was ever preached than her grave has 
preached for twenty years in a little hillside 
graveyard in New Hampshire. 

"She was so pleasant." That is what is 
lettered on the headstone, and I would rath- 



62 ^ttxhzTC flints. 

er merit that encomium than almost any 
other the world could grant me. Think of 
that, ye wheel riders and voters, ye riotous 
formulaters of discord in clubs, ye office 
seekers and suffrage howlers. What is 
going to be the epitaph that the hand of 
truth letters upon the graves of more than 
one-half of your number? Perhaps it shall 
be said of you : "She was so smart,^' "So ag- 
gressive/' '^'So hard to get the best of," '*^So 
expert at bicycling,'^ and *'So handy with 
bloomers." But very few of you shall ever 
smile up from underneath the daisy roots to 
feel some one part the grass on your graves 
and read, with half a laugh and half a sob, 
^'She was so pleasant!" Bless her dear 
heart! For not many of the advanced 
copies of the new woman are very pleasant, 
to my reckoning. They are hedged about 
with a false dignity, they bristle with a spu- 
rious independence, they are lurid with ag- 
gressiveness and too awfully smart at rep- 
artee for comfort. I don't want to be a 
fool, and I don't like fools; but if women 
of the sweet Alice type are counted as fools, 
I will fall in line rather than keep up with 
this latter-day procession of greedy seekers 
after position, fortune and fame. Wouldn't 



^mhzy^ Mints. 63 

you rather be possessed of a disposition that 
should make a friend weep to remember 
your name twenty years after your body had 
gone back to dust, than be recalled to recol- 
lection by a photograph taken en route up 
the boulevard on a bicycle on your way to 
an Australian booth to cast your vote for 
Mayor of Chicago? 



How tired we are! How ready to fold 
the arms and let the old boat drift! How 
indifferent to the fate of the weather-beaten 
thing! Let it go; we have pulled at the 
heavy oars long enough. Our hands are 
callous, our head droops. There is no sun- 
shine above where the torn clouds fly, no 
brightness below where the dark currents 
whirl. What is the use of forever tugging 
away to keep a miserable old scow headed 
up stream, when unseen and cruel forces 
are always dragging it down the dark 
waters of defeat? We started out with 
high courage, but the currents have been 
too strong for us. The bit of bunting we 



64 ^mhzx (dXints. 

carried at the mast-head went overboard 
long ago. The name of the boat, in gilded 
letters, "Hope,'^ is washed illegible by briny 
seas. Lo, the thunder of the breakers just 
ahead of us in the fog! Is it not easier to 
drift on the ledge than to keep pulling? 
Only a plunge, that is all, and then — who 
shall number the years of our content? 
Who shall tell over the sweet endurance of 
our rest? This is the way the bravest of 
us talk when the January thaws come, and 
all the crystal winter world is turned to sod- 
den clouds and drizzle. This is the way we 
talk when the girl has put too much sale- 
ratus in the muffins, or undercooked the 
veal. But let the west wind get after the 
clouds as a Scotch collie dog gets after a 
sheep, and send them flying through the 
celestial meadow-lands and over the hori- 
zon bars ; let the old cook go, and get a new 
one who will be more careful about the 
muffins, and how quickly the aspect of life 
changes ! 

I met a little woman to-day, all draggled 
and rumpled and wet. We stood upon the 
street corner in the rain, two sketches from 
life, as it were, of the most wretched women 
in Chicago. The hair-pins had all fallen out 



^mhi^x flints. 65 

of my back hair, and my head was Medusa- 
like. I had no umbrella. I wore a short 
dress and the martyr's arctics. The ap- 
pearance of the little woman was even more 
doleful. She carried an umbrella, but it 
leaked, and had smeared her face with olive 
tints. She was thin, and chilly, and limp. 

'Well," said I, "this is awful weather, 
isn't it?" 

"Indeed it is," said she, "but it doesn't 
make much difference to poor folks what 
sort of weather it is." 

''No, indeed, it does not," said I. *'Sunny 
weather doesn't bring in money to pay the 
bills any faster than stormy weather does." 

"How are you?" asked she. 

''Sick," answered I ; "I'm going to see the 
doctor now." 

"I have had neuralgia so badly of late," 
said she, "that I am all worn out." 

"I hear that there is an epidemic of diph- 
theria," said I. 

"I thought the baby had it last night," 
said she, "but it was croup." 

"Small-pox and cholera are expected to 
visit Chicago this coming season," said I. 

"Yes," said she. "Could you lend me a 

quarter?" 
ft 



66 ^mhj^x mints. 

I dived into the depths of my bag and 
produced some cracker crumbs and two 
cents. 

Then we both wiped our eyes — she with 
a veil that accentuated the oHve tints; I on 
the windward side of my mitten. 

"Good-bye," said I. 

"Good-bye," said she, and the sound of 
my departing arctics as I plunged on my 
way was hushed in the breath of her heavy 
sighs. 

A few hours later the wind had changed 
and it had stopped raining. Enough blue 
appeared in the sky to make trousers for 
forty tailors. The little woman and I met 
again. 

^'Lovely afternoon/' said she. 

'^'Glorious/' said I. 

'^'Where are you going?'^ asked she. 

"Around to the florist's to look at the 
flowers," said I. 

'T have just been to get my new sappho 
bang," said she; ^'how does it look?' 

'^Lovely," said I; "do you like my new- 
veil?" 

^'You are just adorable in that color," 
said she; ^'let's go around to Chopley's and 
get a fry.'' 



^vxhj^x (founts. 67 

"All right," said I; ''but we'll buy a pot of 
primroses first; I believe spring is really 
coming." 

Now nothing on earth shifted our tune 
out of the minor into crisp and sparkling 
major but the change in the weather. To 
be sure, the leaving off of the arctics may 
have had something to do with the uplift- 
ing of my spirits, for I verily believe there 
is something uncanny about a woman who 
can be gay in arctic overshoes. It is like 
attempting to say bright things to a deaf 
man, or taking a moonlight ride in a west 
side street car, to strive to keep the head 
light with those architectural monstrosities 
on our feet. 

Ah, but my dear, I do not intend to treat 
the actual sorrows of life lightly. I know 
how many hearts to-day are aching, which 
no shifting wind nor blooming spring can 
ever make merry again. I, for one, am 
dumb before the mighty preponderance of 
mere physical suffering in the world. From 
Chatterton, dying in his garret, to the poor 
lost dog in the street, or the tortured horse 
in his nosebag, it is anguish, despair and 
torment all the way. 



68 ^mhtx minis. 

When you and I get rich, my dear, as 
some day we surely shall, when the long- 
delayed fleet of expectation sails into port, 
we will know just whom to help of the 
hosts of needy ones who surround us. We 
will slyly pay the vexing bills for some of 
those dear people who have grown gray in 
the struggle to make a four-foot income 
cover six-foot requirements. We will take 
tired invalids who have lain all their lives 
in pain away to the country where they can 
hear the bobolinks in the clover and see 
the great and infinite sky. We will snatch 
old gentlemen out of stuffy shops where 
they toil and give them a pipe and an easy 
chair on a southward lying piazza. We 
will gather up whole armfuls of tired moth- 
ers who have fought valiantly the battle to 
keep their fatherless children nourished and 
happy, and we will build a home for them 
somewhere where plumbers and coal deal- 
ers and grocery men never intrude with 
bills. They shall forget how to spell care, 
and their happy dialect shall know no such 
words as ''dues," or "can^t afford it," or 
"monthly payments." 

We are not rich, the more's the pity, but 



^mJiitTc (Mints. 69 

there are lots of folks who are and here 
is love's opportunity for all such. 



I am tired of the ceaseless waltz of events. 
I want to go back and be a protoplasm. I 
want to be a barnacle on a South Sea Island 
rock, and let the full Pacific tides wash over 
me, and the southern suns steep me in in- 
finite calms of laziness. I want to forget 
that Mr. Yerkes ever dreamed about a 
cable-car and materialized his dream, or 
that there is such a thing as a telegraph, or 
a fire-alarm, or a steam-engine in the world. 
My brain aches with the effort to keep up 
with the pace of events. I have felt this 
way aboard swift-rushing cars. Should ex- 
perience the same sensation, I think, tied to 
the tail of a comet sparkling through space. 
Give me the rest that lurks in clover blos- 
soms and shadow-haunted woods, and you 
may take my place in Vanity Fair ; you may 
fall into file with the votaries of fashion and 
pleasure, beating with tireless feet the round 
of overflowing days. I wish I were a bird, 
to spread my wings and fly away to the top 
of a tall elm tree or a mountain pine, leaving 



70 ^mhtx (Stints. 

forever this crazy world, and steering my 
feathered sails straight into the upper blue, 
dipping my plumy oars in far-off songful 
seas of air. I'd go to Oregon, where neither 
the devil nor a wood-chopper had been be- 
fore me, and I'd find some forest so vast and 
deep that even the flutter of a falling leaf 
could be heard for miles in the still air, and 
there I'd build me a nest of silence, drink 
sunshine for wine, and never grow old. 
And when death came I'd turn into an angel 
without any more fuss than it takes for a 
bud to burst into a blossom. I'd have no 
funeral, nor crape, nor mourning friends, 
no floral display nor out-door parade of 
hearse and followers, but I'd simply die and 
be done with it, as "morning changes into 
noon." That fancy suggests another. Do 
you know I think it would be rather diffi- 
cult to change a wide-awake, public-spirited 
citizen of earth into a domestic angel. He 
would always be coming back and poising 
his wing like a butterfly's in the air^ to see 
how the world was faring. He wouldn't 
take half as much interest in the new home 
as in the old. How would it seem, I won- 
der, to visit earth with the gyves of mortali- 
ty stricken from our faculties and the dust 



^mhzx (flints. 71 

of limitation brushed from our vision; to 
watch the green globe like a bubble in the 
sunshine, floating on its way amid the stars? 
Imagine an angel poised above us this mo- 
ment, what would he see, and how would it 
all seem to him? Would he laugh, or brush 
away a tear with his unlaundried plumage, 
and soar back to the heavenly country, glad 
that his race on earth was run forever? 
Dimpled with dells, and carved into hills, 
starred with waters and fringed with forests, 
I think this brisk little planet would seem a 
very nice pocket edition of paradise itself, 
for never tell me that heaven can be any 
fairer than earth shall be one day, if dusted 
of sorrow and sin. 

I have been gradually learning to leave a 
great many things that used to take up a 
good deal of my attention to God. The 
consciousness that He is abundantly able to 
attend to His own concern has taken con- 
siderable of a load off my mind. For in- 
stance, I used to fret a good bit because of 
evil-doers, but since I have come to a full 
appreciation of the fact that God will at- 



y2 Jimtrj^ic (SXittts. 

tend to the sinner's case better than I can I 
manage to get lots more comfort out of life. 
It is no more concern of mine what other 
people do than the condition of your pre- 
serve cellar is to your neighbor. These may 
be bad all the way through and those may 
be just beginning to spoil, but all that is 
their Maker's concern and nobody else's. 
My neighbor's wife may wear an ill fitting 
gown, but if I look well after the fit of my 
own raiment that is all I am responsible for. 
She has to wear the dress, not I, and any 
interference of mine is an impertinence. 
The matter lies between her and her dress- 
maker. In the same way the fellow that 
lives next door to you may be the meanest 
sort of a reprobate, but his morality is a 
matter between himself and God. Any in- 
terference of yours is ill timed and super- 
fluous. When we learn to treat humanity 
as individual and not composite we shall 
do much to solve the problem of universal 
peace. Whatever I do is my afifair. The 
same to you, my dear, and heaven help us 
to be wise in our choice and honest in living 
up to it. If I sin it is my own concern ; my 
life is mine and I must live it, yielding at 
last the keys of my stewardship from my 



own hand, and not from yours. I am an- 
swerable directly to God for my blunders, 
my shortcomings and my sins, and I'm glad 
of it. I'd rather take my chances with Him 
than with any fellow-creature judgments. 



What a mistake we make when we ex- 
press any dread of judgment day! In real- 
ity the only salvation for poor, groping, sin- 
shattered humanity lies in the fact that God 
is to be our judge, and that He is just. There 
is more comfort to be gotten out of that one 
word "just" than we often stop to consider. 
What human censor was ever absolutely 
unbiased? What earthly tribunal is without 
corruption? It is an exceeding pleasant 
thought to me, then, that I am going to be 
finally judged by one who knows me best of 
all. I am going to be cross-examined by no 
whipper-snapper attorney of flesh and 
blood, but my destiny lies in the hands of 
the living God who made me. 

♦(c sji Hi * * 

Suppose a lot of old Hottentot savages 
who never saw a cake or tasted a cake 
should be selected to sit in judgment upon a 
baker's output. How could they discrimi- 



74 l^ml^jeie flints, 

nate as to the flavor and the quaHty? They 
might say that there was too much or too 
little of something that suited or displeased 
them, but what would their judgment 
amount to? It takes the test of the skillful 
and scientific cakemaker to determine the 
fault. Another thought I got out of this 
hypothesis is that the poor little batch of 
dough is not to be held responsible for its 
own construction. I don't know who is ex- 
actly, but that is another matter for God to 
take care of and settle. If some ancestor of 
mine put too much spice in the cake of 
which I am the present loaf and baking, 
there is one thing certain — I shall not be 
held responsible for the fiery flavor I had 
nothing to do with formulating! 



Of the many things to strike the stroller 
on his rounds, the discriminating capacity 
of the average dry goods clerk calls for con- 
siderable wonderment. As I stood in one of 
our largest stores the other day, grasping 
my bundle, which, true to the type of 
woman's bundle-making, was loosely con- 
structed and far from elegant, I said to my- 



^mhzx stints. 75 

self: "Amber, do you think if these dapper 
counter-jumpers who draw the Hne so finely 
between the woman who carries a dog and 
the woman who carries a bundle, were sell- 
ing loyalty by the pattern, honor and truth 
by the yard, purity in crystal fringes, or 
charity and ingenuousness by the piece, 
with gentle dealing and courteous speech 
by the card, the rush would be so great to 
buy? Would this haughty dame stand by 
so patiently if she were here to purchase a 
little happiness, in barter of her own, for 
her neighbor?" Would these patrician girls 
with straight profiles and untroubled eyes 
show the same alacrity to buy inward adorn- 
ment that they manifest for outward show? 
To anybody of an introspective turn of 
mind, prone to cast his thoughts away on- 
ward into the future, to a time when false 
discrimination and external seeing shall van- 
ish like last year's dandelion pufifs in the first 
fall wind, the show of life's vain parade is 
a saddening spectacle after all. The super- 
ficial gloss on the manners of the sycophan- 
tic clerk, like starch in a cheap fabric; the 
avidity the woman displays in buying but- 
tons and furbelows, forgetting all the time 
the little adornments for the robe she must 



y6 Jk.m1brje:e mXu\%. 

wear the other side the tomb ; and the cool 
calculation of girlish hearts that weigh gain 
over against good, and make no question 
of any profit that costs them their woman- 
hood to attain — all this furnishes bitter re- 
flection to sadden the heart and destroy 
one's faith in the adjustment of things as 
God created them. 



Suppose one was born a Gradgrind, with 
a geometric heart and a castiron brain. Sup- 
pose one never saw anything but a yellow 
weed in a cowslip, and an accumulation of 
tinted vapor in a sunset. Suppose one never 
heard anything but running water in an 
April brook, and an inaccuracy of assorted 
notes in the song of a bobolink. In short, 
suppose one was born with a stomach, but 
with no poetic sentiment; with arms and 
legs, but none of those finer attributes that 
make of the soul a mimosa flower; what 
then? Why, in that case, my dear, a day 
like this, a storm like the splendid carnival 
of wind and rain last night, a fire in the 
grate, or a fire in the west at sunset time, a 
rose on its stalk, or a rose in the east at 
dawn, would have no more effect upon us 



^mhj^x flints. 77 

than so much dew dropped on the back of a 
whale! Blessed are they who never grow 
too old, or too busy, or too tired to dream. 
Blessed be the business man who never gets 
to be so thoroughly a business man that he 
cannot take time every spring to go to Italy 
on a magnolia bough, as Prue's dear old 
bookkeeper husband did, or to visit his 
castles in Spain now and then, when the 
days are full of autumn haze and the fine 
dust of the golden-rod. 

"I have heard it said that we have no 
mountains in the vicinity of Chicago," said 
a grizzled old Board of Trade man to me 
the other day. "Why, that's all wrong! We 
have rosier peaks and whiter summits than 
any Alps, and they show every clear night 
along the western horizon!" Wasn't that 
a pretty fancy for an old wheat reckoner to 
keep in his heart? 

Do you think such a man will ever have 
his passport papers to the fair country over 
the border? Why, my dear, half the world, 
what with its money-getting passion and 
love of greed, won't know what to do with 
themselves in heaven if the grace of God 



78 ^mhtx (flints. 

ever gets them there! They will see noth- 
ing but 95 per cent specimens in the golden 
streets and a first-rate greenhouse specu- 
lation in the garden of Paradise. Imagine 
a latter day dollar-chaser set down suddenly 
in heaven. He would be as out of place 
there as a hornet in a jug of cream or a 
grain reaper in a feather factory. 



Cultivate a little more sentiment, indulge 
now and then in a wholesome romance, 
open the window of your soul to the east 
and let the morning sun gild your ideas; it 
will not harm you, and it will make you an 
infinitely more pleasant companion than 
you now are. 



I have been thinking out some new beati- 
tudes. The original list is getting rather 
hackneyed and needs amendment. 

Blessed are ye when all men shall revile 
you and call you "crank,^' for by that em- 
blem be assured of your brain power. 

Blessed are ye when you find yourself in 
the minority, for of such are the salt of this 
earth. 



^mhj^ mints. 79 

Blessed are ye when by reason of clean 
linen and courteous manner men call you 
^'dude/' for you shall be set apart thereby 
from the rabble like an eagle in a barnyard. 

Blessed are ye when the evil-minded 
shall shoot the venomous lie at you, for 
thereby shall ye gain the chance to outlive 
it, and confound the vicious. 

Blessed are ye when your purse faileth, 
for thereby shall you be saved from bar- 
gains which end in weariness and mortifi- 
cation of the flesh. 

Blessed are ye when people call you 
without policy, for so saying they count you 
(unwitting) among the pure in heart. 

Blessed are ye when the world calls you 
unpopular, for to be unpopular with men 
is to be popular with angels. 



Once, when time was young, a certain 
man said unto his wife, '^Arise, let us go 
to. Let us sell our stringed instrument, 
yea, even our time-piece wrought of fine 
gold, and buy for ourselves a suburban 
home, where we may increase in girth as 
the years go by, and where, when the full- 



8o ^xtibtx flints. 

ness of our days shall be accomplished, we 
may lay our bones in peace." 

And the wife, being feather-headed by 
reason of her youth, answered, ''Yea, 
verily." 

And it came to pass that they sold their 
stringed instrument, yea, even their time- 
piece wrought of fine gold, and went up 
into the land of the Woodites and pur- 
chased unto themselves a house and lot. 

And removing thereto, they were sub- 
jected to trials that frosted the head with 
silver and bent the upright spine. 

The house, having no fence built round 
about its walls, was liable to the invasion of 
wandering beasts. At night the brain of 
the feather-headed was crazed and her blood 
curdled by the appearance of large-eyed and 
horned animals who gazed through the 
windows and butted against the casement 
like evil-minded goblins. 

And in the pleasant days of spring, when 
the pale anemone blossomed and the lilac 
filled the air with perfume; when the blue- 
bird flashed athwart the gold of the young 
willow, and the dandelion stars were in the 
meadows, it chanced that the vigor of the 
young man waxed low by reason of hurried 



leapings and "mile-per-minute" laps to 
catch the early train. 

And it came to pass that for him the vary- 
ing seasons brought small delight, by rea- 
son of the fleeting nature of his observance 
thereof. 

And the patience of the feather-headed 
was worn to tatters by reason of cow-bells 
that never ceased their jangle, and tramps 
that came up like the hordes of the desert, 
also by reason of the scarcity in the land of 
serving-maids. 

And the two planted a garden. And 
they straightway laid their peas fathoms 
deep, so that even unto this day they came 
not up. 

And the sprightly potato-bug took pos- 
session of the potato crop. 

And the shrieks of the feather-headed 
rent the air by reason of the appearance of 
the noisome bug upon her stockings. 

Likewise the advent of large green worms 
that moved slowly and had horns. 

Now the carrot yield of that garden was 
immense, chiefly by reason of its undesira- 
bility. 

And the spirit of the young man waxed 



82 Jimtrjev flints, 

wroth, and he smote himself and talked 
vainly. 

And the two took counsel together, say- 
ing, "Lo, we will go into the chicken busi- 
ness/' 

And the neighbors reviled the feather- 
headed by day so that her eyes were red 
with weeping, saying continually unto her: 
"What! and shall we scour our doorsteps 
and make clean the portals of our habita- 
tions that your chickens may track them 
again to defilement? Shall we plant flow- 
er beds for your fowls to lay waste ?'^ 

And they lifted the heel against her. 

Now the nights were robbed of rest by 
reason of the dread of thieves who made 
merry in the devastation of the chicken 
coops. 

And the early morning hours came to be 
a season of exceeding wrathfulness of tem- 
per, together with much profanity, on ac- 
count of the wakeful rooster, who rent the 
dawn with the shrill clarion of his call. 

Yet it came to pass that if a chicken were 
needed for dinner there was none in all the 
land to kill it. 

"Indade, mum/' the red-armed damsel 



^mhzx (flints. 83 

who ruled the kitchen would remark, ^'the 
tinder heart of me wud prevint that same." 

So in time the spirit of the young man 
fainted within him, and his chickens be- 
came to his unquiet fancy a goblin brood 
that ruled the land. 

And he sought forgetfulness in the great 
city. Yea, in the theater his soul found 
delight. 

And it came to pass that the latter days 
of that young man were worse than the 
first, for the road on which his possessions 
bordered lay far back from the steam high- 
way. So that returning homeward by 
night, when as yet there was no promise 
of dawn in the sky and the silence of death 
was over all the earth, the young man often 
stumbled by the way, bruising his flesh, 
rending his garments and greatly exciting 
his spirit. 

And once as he groped his course in a 
darkness that might have been cut with 
sharp knives, behold a pallid object con- 
fronted him, and raising itself upon lumin- 
ous hind legs that seemed shaped of white 
sea-fog, it silently waved its paws in his face, 
yet made no sound. 

And the young man fled like a swift bird 



84 ^mhj^x mints. 

to his dwelling-place, and finding the feath- 
er-headed alert and on the watch for the 
coming of the stealthy thief he said unto 
her, ''Either my brain faileth me or a white 
kangaroo is abroad in the land." 

And the fame of the white kangaroo 
spread mightily. So that none dared ven- 
ture forth at night save with exceeding ter- 
ror and knees that smote together mightily. 

Moral: Think twice before sinking all 
that thou hast in suburban property. 



What has become of the old-fashioned 
custom of "visiting?" I would give the 
world to experience again the thrill of de- 
light that used to animate my heart when 
grandfather got out the old democrat wagon 
and we all piled in to go spend the day at a 
distant neighbor's. To save my life I can 
never experience anything but weariness 
with the modern formula of ceremonious 
calls. There is no cheer in them — they are 
as cold as the hearts of the society women 
who make them. We used to carry our 
knitting or our sewing and go visiting in 



J^mbjev Cf^tittts. 85 

calico gowns, but now my lady is gloved 
and laced and bonneted in the height of 
style and maintains the same ceremony for 
a morning call that one would expect in the 
Queen's drawing-room. Heigh-ho for the 
good old days when hospitality was a com- 
mon virtue and formality and ostentation 
were not with us; when folks went to see 
each other because they were sure of a wel- 
come, and not because they wanted to com- 
pare notes as to who could make the most 
display; when the dinner was spiced with 
friendly chat and whatever gossip was 
served with the tea was of the harmless sort, 
free from scandal; when the children went 
along and were not left at home with hired 
girls; when everything was heartsome and 
homely and cheery, and hospitality meant 
greater things than a bit of pasteboard and a 
stiff interchange of bloodless conventionali- 
ties. 

Once upon a time there was a girl. In 
no respect did she differ from other girls, 
save perhaps that she was a little gentler 
than most. So far as a loving father or 



86 ^mhtx mints. 

brother counted, this dear child was with- 
out protection. The only shield between her 
tender heart and sorrow was a frail little 
widowed mother, who worked early and late 
to keep a certain gray wolf from the door, 
a gaunt and hungry creature called Want, 
whose scent is keen and whose fangs are 
cruel once fastened in the heart. The years 
drifted away in snow and blossom until one 
day the tired little mother laid her weary 
head upon the bosom of Death, and left the 
young girl desolate indeed. A few friends 
stood by long enough to see the grave 
closed over the dead, and then the girl 
turned to face an absolutely relentless world 
alone. What chance had she in a battle in 
which strong men grow lean of soul and 
broken of body? She tried to secure a place 
to teach, but in these days of political pre- 
ferment she might as well have tried for 
nomination on a Presidential ticket. She 
drifted in and out of positions for which 
either her strength was inadequate or her 
capacity insufficient. At last, discouraged 
and too early spent with the attritions of a 
world that serves delicate and sensitive na- 
tures as the upper and nether millstones 
serve the wheat-kernel, the young girl 



^mhzx (^littU, 87 

dropped out of sight, and her name was 
heard no more in the few homes where she 
had been inmate or guest. This world is 
full of a-^fully selfish men and women, and 
every day the number grows. Each one has 
enough to do to keep his own head above 
the seething waters, and to watch over the 
interests of the few for whom he may be di- 
rectly responsible, without taking too much 
concern unto himself about the fortunes of 
an orphaned or dowerless girl. This child 
of whom I write had no near relatives. The 
few distant kin she owned were poor and 
too absorbed in the riddle of life to watch 
over her safe solution of the same. So when 
she was gone nobody took the matter deep- 
ly to heart. A certain little crippled girl 
who peddled flowers in a corner of the de- 
pot and a poor old colored man who sold 
papers from the curbstone missed her for a 
time, and a few girl friends who had loved 
her mourned awhile for the sound of her 
voice and the sight of her sweet face, but the 
void soon closed and the world fared on as 
though this bit of wayside life had never 
bloomed within it. 

The other day I chanced to visit a charit- 
able institution located in a distant city. In 



88 ^mhzx mints. 

one of the wards of a scrupulously kept but 
unhomelike place I came across a familiar 
face. Wan and wasted it lay like a broken 
flower upon the pillow of one of a long row 
of cots. There was something about the 
droop of the mouth and the glint of gold in 
the brown hair of the girl who lay dying be- 
fore me that recalled the gentle presence of 
a long-vanished face. Inquiry ehcited the 
truth. The dying pauper in the charity 
ward of a great institution was the girl the 
brief outline of whose pathetic life is given 
above. Through circumstances it was most 
kind to ignore, leaving their resultant trage- 
dy to one who judged more wisely and char- 
itably than the stony-hearted andPharisaical 
world, the young girl had descended from 
her high and fair estate to this. Left alone 
in the world, too weak in body to cope with 
the world's harshness, too gentle in spirit 
to resist its seductions, she fell, and God in 
infinite mercy thus early gathered her from 
the snare of the evil-minded and the un- 
faithful to set her bewildered soul free in his 
own good time, as the imprisoned bird 
springs from the entanglement and the 
fright of capture. If only some dear, good 
mother of young girls, knowing the deso- 



^mhzx Mints. 89 

lation of this girl when her mother left her 
all alone, had opened the doorway of her 
own home to the bewildered feet! It was 
not charity that she needed; it was home 
and a mother. It was not within the walls 
of a well-managed home for working 
women that she would have found security 
and peace and the chance to unfold the pos- 
sibilities of a very sweet and gentle nature; 
she needed just such a home as yours and 
mine, full of light and laughter and music 
and song, with pictures and books to make 
it cheerful, and love to keep it warm and 
happy. There are thousands just such lone- 
ly girls out in the cold world to-night. 
Mother and father are dead, no sister and no 
brother to watch over them and beguile the 
lonely days with bright companionship; 
what wonder that they go astray and drop 
out of the way, like rose leaves that flutter 
in the dust at the touch of the rude wind. 
Open your hearts and your homes to such 
girls. For their dead mother's sake try and 
be something like a mother to them. Sur- 
round them with love, watch over and coun- 
sel them along with your own girls, and for 
every such deed of heavenly mercy receive 



90 ^mhzx CSXittts. 

a jewel by and bye for that crown we are 
going to wear throughout the eternal years. 



As the years go on how full they grow to 
be of ghosts. Who of us, after first youth, 
have failed to find our holidays and our an- 
niversaries haunted by restless memories 
and sad associations that stalk like sheeted 
specters from the tomb? We grow to dread 
the coming of these festival days just be- 
cause they are so full of the spirits of the past. 
How many wish that they might lie down 
and sleep through and over these holiday 
times, thus banishing the thoughts that He 
away down deep in the hearts whence the 
saddest tears well? "I used to anticipate 
the coming of Thanksgiving and Christ- 
mas," said a frienci to me the other day, "but 
this year the very thought is maddening." 
Why? Because the first snow of the season 
fell upon her husband's grave in Rose Hill, 
where barely a half-year ago she laid him 
and her heart together. And when once the 
ghosts get to coming into our life, oh, how 
fast they throng. We cannot take a jour- 



ney but they go with us. We cannot lie 
down to rest, or rise to take up Hfe's multi- 
form duties, but they lie down and rise up 
with us. Only at the door of death shall we 
leave them and enter in to find the better 
part of Hfe in the shadowy land of dreams. 
All day long it has been snowing, and to 
me not even June, with its showering apple- 
tree flowers and its alternations of silver rain 
and golden sunshine, is more beautiful than 
these soft winter days full of snow feathers 
and gray shadows. I love to watch the 
young pines take on their hoHday attire. 
How they robe themselves from head to 
foot in draperies of fleecy white, pin dia- 
monds in their dark branches, and wind 
about their slender girth the strands of 
evanescent pearl. I love to watch the skies 
at dawn (I should like it better if dawn came 
a few hours later), when they kindle Hke a 
very flame above the blufifs and scatter 
sparkles of light as a red rose scatters its 
petals. Where has the, last year fled? It 
seems but a day's span since I sat by this 
same window and watched the lilac plumes 
yonder on that old bush in the snow bank 
and laughed myself sick to see the children's 
young kid tackle the dandelion blows. At 



92 ^tahtx stints. 

this rate it won't be farther away than day 
after to-morrow morning when you and I 
wake up and find ourselves old folks. How 
odd it will be to lift our palsied members 
from off the couch and in a piping voice 
complain of the grasshopper's burden. To 
look in the glass and see the wisps of frosted 
stubble in place of the curling locks of 
brown and jet and gold. Ah well, it is a 
comfort to think that some spirits defy time 
and are as young at seventy as at seventeen. 
Beauty fades and witchery departs, but true 
hearts, like wine, mellow and enrich with 
years. 



Before me lies an old book, lettered in 
gilt, "Leaves of Affection." The bind- 
ing is frayed, the leaves somewhat dog- 
eared, and the general appearance of the 
volume indicates a rough passage. It is a 
school-girl's autograph collection, and the 
dates run back into the sixties. Nearly 
thirty years ago the owner of this little vol- 
ume wrote in the stiff, round hand so much 
in vogue with the past generation, the fol- 



^mhzx flints. 93 

lowing pretty sentiment on the fly-leaf of 
what was then a brave new book : 

" 'Twill be sweet in after years, 
When my eyes are filled with tears, 
When my weary heart is sore 
With the woes of life's grim war. 
And my heavy spirits seek 
Solitude to think and weep, 
'Twill he sweet indeed for me 
Then to soothe my misery 
By the words herein engraved. 
And the dear names here displayed." 

The girl was very young when she wrote 
these lines, and if I remember rightly had 
not attained the dignity of her first long 
dress. Her flaxen hair was worn in a braid, 
and the bread and butter marks outnum- 
bered the tear stains on her jolly round face. 
As she read the lines over to the admiring 
friends of the long ago time, how they 
laughed together in their sleeves at thought 
of any after years that should fill her eyes 
with tears, of any sore heart for her, precipi- 
tated by hand to hand conflict in Hfe's "grim 
war," But the years have fled away as years 
have had the fashion of flying ever since 
Father Time set his autograph to the calen- 
dar, and yesterday in overlooking an old 
trunk away out in a peculiarly ill-kept wood- 



94 ^vxhi^x (Stints. 

shed, a gaunt old girTin a pink Mother Hub- 
bard, with hair strained tight off her battle- 
scarred face, and no end of coal dust and 
smut upon her battered features, ran across 
this book, and sat right down on an over- 
turned rag-bag and wept aloud at the mem- 
ories that came to life with each faded leaf's 
turning. "Tears?" I should think there 
had been tears, whole rivers of them, shed 
for sorrows that have darkened the air like 
crows' pinions. '^Grim war?" So much of 
it that from the tip of her head to the toe of 
her foot madam is scarred like a honey- 
comb, and yet, so far, she has run up no flag 
of truce, nor called for any quarter. 

Let me see; the first name recorded 
brings back from the past pretty Miss Amy 
Sewall, the dear little teacher who used to 
pray with the bad girls instead of scold 
them, and for whom any one of us would 
have laid down our lives to save from sor- 
row. 

"God forbid," writes she, "that you, dear 
child, be found at last outside the great gar- 
ner into which angels shall shout the 'Har- 
vest Home.'" A moment's pause for 
thought as this faded leaf flutters through 
my fingers is insufHcient to decide the ques- 



tion as to whether the ''dear child" is inside 
or outside the harvest car at the present 
writing. Perhaps her chances will fall 
among the gleanings which some belated 
harvester shall scurry up with a rake, and 
pitch in with the harvest after nightfall. 

'Thy spirit knows that Emma loves thee," 
writes the next one. Poor Emma. In spite 
of the burden of her affection she stole my 
first beau away from me, and we parted next 
door to blows. 

Here is the name of Joe Colburn. How I 
wish her eyes might fall upon the words I 
write to-night, so that she should send me a 
message back from the land of silence 
whither she drifted so long ago. The mer- 
riest madcap girl that ever sparkled a black 
eye beneath silken lashes or turned an ankle 
in a romping race. Whether she be dead or 
alive I know not, but even heaven will be a 
cheerier place to tarry in with her bright 
spirit as an angel comrade. 

And here is jolly Hannah's faded mark. 
I wonder if in the corner of the world 
whither fate drifted her, as the current of a 
river floats a leaf to strand it on a stone, she 
ever thinks of the days when her blithe 
laugh rang through the old dormitory halls, . 



96 ^ttxhzTC ^Xhxts. 

and her peculiar bit of slang, "Git up to 
smash," wrought woe in the section teach- 
er's gentle breast. Hannah was a daisy, and 
could I see her to-night standing before me 
in the pink satin bonnet that she used to 
wear on top of her bright brown hair, I 
would cheerfully forfeit a hundred dollars 
of the fortune that Time is bringing me in 
his belated boat. 

"It is a glorious thing to resist tempta- 
tion, but a safe thing to avoid it," wrote 
Hiram himself, the father confessor and 
head of us all. The old man has been in his 
grave this many a year, but if reports be true 
the latter part of his life was devoted to 
neither resisting nor avoiding. He died in 
the Washingtonian Home. What an old 
fraud he was, and how customary it is for a 
male preceptor of a girl's school to be a 
cross betweeen a rogue and a hypocrite. 
Hiram had a wife who used to wait upon 
him like a servant, and whom he used to 
abuse like a coward; he was all smiles to the 
rich girls and pickles to the poor ones. His 
own son used to make faces at him behind 
his back, and I myself told him once in one 
of our exciting interviews that he reminded 
me of Legree, in Uncle Tom's Cabin. The 



^mJjitx (flints, 97 

memory of that bit of sincerity on my part 
has sweetened a retrospective half-hour of 
my life. 

Here is the autograph of Beulah 
Vaughan. I can hardly decipher the words, 
but I think the sentiment of her verse, like 
all the rest, breathes pure and undying af- 
fection. How Beulah used to sing when she 
took the tenor in the song, "There'll be no 
more sorrow there," just at the time for 
evening prayers, when the big school room 
was dim with shadows, and the autumn 
winds were harping an accompaniment in 
the branches of the pines that made somber 
the seminary grounds. It used to seem to 
me as though heaven was only a stone's 
throw away, and I would lean my head on 
my desk and cry to be there. Poor Beulah 
married early, and died young with a broken 
heart. Her husband put her happiness and 
his own pride, with both their fortunes, into 
a whisky glass and drained the contents. 
He went to prison for forgery, and she to 
her grave. 

"Jennie Burr" is the next name recorded. 
She was another singer, and that is all I can 
remember of her, excepting a figure like a 



98 ^mhzx stints, 

willow spray, and a pair of gentle eyes that 
rarely smiled. 

And Little Mollie— I think the child 
meant it when she wrote, "My darling, I 
have loved you from the first, and I shall 
love you always;" but love with some gen- 
tle little people is like the flavor of molasses 
candy, awfully sweet while it lasts, but soon 
forgotten. 

"Dearest," wrote another, "May thy life 
ever be as calm as when the noonday sun is 
floating on the moonlit sea." According to 
subsequent developments this long-ago 
wish has been verified. The sublime calm 
of my life, so far, has been about upon a par 
with the cyclonic convulsions of nature that 
should force a noonday sun to ride a moon- 
lit sea. 

"Work on earth and rest in heaven," 
wrote sweet Flavia Capin. Well, I have ful- 
filled the first part of the injunction, Flavia 
dear, and am waiting for the last. 

"My precious one," wrote Nettie Wil- 
liams, "May the realities of thy future ex- 
cel any possible anticipation." They have, 
Nettie. Nothing that I could have antici- 
pated in the days when we flirted so despe- 
rately with the young man in the village 



^mhj^x (flints. 99 

post-office could possibly have exceeded 
the realities of my existence thus far. 

"Integrity, fidelity and virtue adorn fe- 
male character," wrote the wildest girl in 
: school, and the sight of the faded handwrit- 
ing recalls to my mind many a mad esca- 
pade we two took part in together. Wher- 
ever she may be to-night, I wonder if she 
ever thinks of the post-office we had in the 
old hollow-tree, and the ardent love-letters 
we exchanged there with callow village 
youths. I wonder if she ever stops to smile 
as I do to recall our foragings for provender 
when the store-room was locked for the 
night, and the billet of dried beef we cher- 
ished all term-time so tenderly, spoiling 
many a good eraser in chipping nutriment 
from its granite sides. 

Ah, well, one cannot sit forever on an 
overturned rag-bag and weep over the days 
that are no more. So the woman closed the 
old book with a sigh, and took up the toma- 
hawk again to charge upon the realities of 
a prosaic present. 



"It is of no use !" cried I, flinging my pen- 
cil at a far "too previous" blue-bottle fly 



loo ^mhzx (flints. 

which had insisted upon taking my nose for 
an early blossom until patience went to 
windward like a spume of foam in a gale; 
"it is of no use; a dog-day has dropped 
down in April, and I shall vanish before it 
like stubble in a flame! What can I do to 
keep cool?" 

"Drink^ pepper tea," said one whose sug- 
gestions are always maddening. 

"Keep calm," said another whose wisdom 
transcends his years. 

"ni take a ride on the cable-car, forward 
seat!" said I, and started. 

As usual, when I signaled the car the 
driver mistook me for a merry lunatic whil- 
ing the time away in harmless sport. He 
didn't pretend to stop his car, although I 
hailed it from the upper crossing of an in- 
tersecting street, according to orders. Fi- 
nally, becoming excited, I charged down 
the track like an Indian brave on the war- 
path, and when with a flying leap I boarded 
the car I had hardly breath left to give 
thanks. 

I wish I knew what it all means. I won- 
der what they really think a woman intends 
when she stands on a street corner with her 
hand uplifted like a village church-spire, or 



^mh&x (Mints. loi 

waves her arm like a banner, or skips to 
and fro like a playful lamb. I wonder what 
they think she really has upon her mind 
when she chases the car for a whole block, 
and bursts into tears when she fails to over- 
take it. I wonder what they believe to be 
the reason of her excitement when she cries 
*'Ah, there! Stop your old car, can't you?" 
Evidently there is a misapprehension some- 
where. Either the car means to boycott the 
women, or we have not struck upon the ap- 
propriate signal for their detention. Some 
day I shall buy me an air-gun (after the 
blessed pony is paid for), and I shall take my 
stand on the legitimate crossing, and when 
the drivers fail to stop at my command, one 
by one they shall fall as withered leaves fall 
in a frost, and as noiselessly. Nobody will 
know that I and my little air-gun personate 
the deadly frost ; but as time goes on and the 
mortality among drivers becomes alarming 
there will be a rumor in the town that it will 
be healthier to stop the car when a woman 
signals it. 

Let me say right here that I know of no 
better cure for nervousness than a ride on 
the front seat of a grip on a bright day. No 
dread of being run away with ; no sympathy 



I02 ^mlbjtic Cdttnts. 

expended on overworked and overheated 
horses ; no fear but what in event of a colli- 
sion, the grip will get the best of it. A 
breeze like the wind that freshens a sail, di- 
rect in your face; the hum of the cable to 
accentuate your delight, as the ring of the 
iron rails behind a flying train will set the 
pulses beating. To be sure the advance is 
a little jerky, something like that of a Kan- 
sas grasshopper, but you soon get used to 
that. 

At my right hand to-day sat two bright- 
eyed girls eating peanuts. The way they 
bit into the crackling shells, nibbled out the 
kernels, and munched steadily away, set me 
thinking of a couple of full-cheeked 
squirrels up in a tree-top. The trace, how- 
ever faint, is undisputed that links us with 
the animal kingdom. Whether it appears 
in a feature, an expression, or a habit like 
this eating of peanuts and chewing of gum 
in public places, it never fails to provide 
the gossamer link that binds us to the pre- 
historic globule. 

At my left sat a type of the great un- 
washed. The wind blew ofif shore or I 
should have killed myself. There was some- 
thing about him that made me remember 



^mhzTC flints. 103 

a piece of Limburger cheese which the Doc- 
tor once put inside my handkerchief box. 
That was long ago, and the boy who did 
the deed is now in better business, but its 
memory returns to me on occasions such as 
these. 

Near me sat a young girl with a face 
which reminded me of an andante move- 
ment in one of Beethoven's symphonies, or 
of an evening sky before the stars have 
found it. There was such veiled strength 
and beautiful possibility in it, that speaking 
to her with the voice of my soul I said, "You 
delightfully natural, a trifle prim, but alto- 
gether lovely girl ! Why are there not more 
of your kind nowadays? No bangs, no 
choker collars, no airs, no mannerisms. A 
smooth brow, a dainty ruffle, thorough re- 
pose of manner, and quiet dignity mark you 
a type as distinct from the average Chicago 
girl as a primrose in a garden of weeds. 
To meet you is like coming across a bunch 
of genuine sweet-peas in a milliner's stock 
of muslin posies P 

A colored woman with a silhouette baby 
dressed in the regulation costume that has 
served to make our own babies so bewitch- 
ing of late, took her seat among the many 



104 ^ttthj^x ClXitxts. 

who rode with me. That baby was about 
the cunningest thing I ever saw. Its eyes 
were black as jet beads, its hair a shade or 
so darker, and its complexion at least three 
tints blacker still. It was solemnly sucking 
a large stick of striped candy, the one color 
in a carnival of gloom. A white baby is 
angelic, but a black baby is simply adorable. 
I should like one around for recreation 
when I get the blues. Anybody who could 
see it roll its eyes and purse its mouth, like 
a diminutive raven contemplating death, 
the tomb and eternity, and not laugh, was 
born without the power of appreciating the 
humorous aspects of life. 

The man whom I long to bid God-speed 
to Joliet occupied a seat near me, and al- 
most washed me out of the car with a freshet 
of tobacco juice. Oh how I shall smite the 
cymbal and beat the drum when that man 
goes into stripes! And the time is coming. 
Out there in Kansas the other day, they ran 
an entire woman ticket right through to 
victory. If the new Mayor of that Western 
hamlet is anything like me, she will come 
down upon the tobacco spitting fiend like 
the Assyrian on the fold. By the ear she 
will march him off to prison, there to linger 



J^mtrje« Mints. 105 

in durance vile until all the seas he has let 
loose to pollute woman's skirts "gang dry," 
and into his disreputable tabernacle of flesh 
and blood the good Lord shall flash the re- 
, flection of decency and good manners. I 
hate him so, my dear, that the violence of 
my emotion must excuse the sharpness of 
my temper when I write of him. 

When at last I alighted from the car, after 
riding eight miles through scenes as vary- 
ing as life in a great cosmopolitan city can 
furnish, I was as cool and happy as if I had 
been bowling along the boulevard in Mrs. 
Lofty's carriage, behind her sleek and hand- 
some grays. For it is not what we have, so 
much, that yields us joy in life as how we 
take it. If one used a harp only as a fire- 
screen, we should never know what heav- 
enly sounds were held captive by its strings. 
It is the way we use our harps, as well as 
our opportunities, that brings out the music 
in them. 



"Do you really believe," asked a pretty 
girl of me the other day, "that any woman 
ever actually died because the man she 
loved was cruel?" 



io6 ^mhjtx flints. 

My dear child, to answer that question I 
should have to begin with Eve, who, I have 
no doubt, drooped and faded from the time 
that Adam told tales about her, and follow 
all along the line to where the poor Httle girl 
died in the hospital the other day because 
her lover deserted her, and even then I 
should be no more certain than I was when 
I started along the shadowy list. The ethics 
of this passionate human heart of ours are 
past all finding out. They cannot be dis- 
cussed lightly, nor can a woman who never 
had a headache catalogue the symptoms 
and progress of other folk's pericardic dis- 
turbances. I do not believe that a sick soul 
has symptoms that can be diagnosed. You 
can study out and prescribe for a bilious dis- 
turbance, but there is no skill this side the 
wisdom of heaven that' can minister to a 
mind diseased. When an apple is stung by 
a venomous insect it simply shrivels up, 
drops from the bough and dies. So with the 
heart stung with ingratitude or contempt; 
it loosens its hold on hfe and drops. You 
may call it heart-break if you like, but the 
processes are past finding out. 



^mhi^x mxnt». lo; 



CHAPTER III. 



A FAIRY STORY FOR GROWN UP 
PEOPLE. 

A fairy once grew discontented with 
Fairyland. Strange that a dainty being 
fed on butterfly-steaks and rose-leaf pud- 
ding, whipped dew and cobweb cake, should 
ever tire of the cuisine, and grumble at the 
fare. But this little Elf of whom I write 
did certainly grow weary of them all, and 
long for a change of scene and climate. 
Perhaps his nerves asserted themselves as 
they sometimes do with grosser mortals, 
and he suffered from neuralgia; or his cob- 
web cake had too much ozone in it and 
caused dyspepsia. If so, who of us can 
blame him for growing whimsical and hard 
to suit? So the little fellow applied for 
leave of absence. 

"Where would you choose to go?" asked 
the Queen after listening to his petition, 



io8 ^mhzx flints. 

thoughtfully stroking her nose the while 
with the section of a violet leaf, as was her 
custom when perplexed. 

"I should like to visit Chicago, the city 
by the great lake in which no fairy has ever 
set foot through all the years of its magical 
growth. I would like to see for myself how 
mortals live and prosper who make their 
gold from pork, ride without horses, and 
manufacture moonlight by electricity." 

''It is a somewhat dangerous undertaking 
you contemplate," replied the Queen. 
"Have you reflected upon the risks to be run 
by an organization like yours, which has 
never known a fiercer alarm than the buzz 
of the mosquito or the ripple of wind-stirred 
leaves; which has never strayed beyond 
these quiet forest-glades, or soared higher 
than the turret of the lily bell, or the lattice 
of the rich red rose? How will you endure 
so long a flight and so mighty a transforma- 
tion of scene and surroundings?" 

"I have pondered long and earnestly upon 
it all," replied the Elf, "and desire grows 
ever stronger within my breast to fly away 
and visit the great city of my dreams." 

"Then be it even as you wish," said the 
Queen, uplifting, as she spoke, a crimson 
trumpet flower and winding a long and 



^mhzx (&llnt». 109 

mellow note which quickly summoned her 
attendant courtiers to her side. "See to it," 
said she, addressing her high chamberlain, 
a gorgeous personage dressed in a pansy 
leaf doublet and hose of daffodil-yellow, 
"that this noble Elf has transportation by 
the first Nautilus steamer sailing from port, 
with choice of state room and reserved seat 
at the Captain's table. I send you by water 
route," continued she, turning to the de- 
lighted Elf and laying her finger softly 
against her wine-red lip, "because the new 
law has not affected marine passes, and the 
royal treasury is just now very low." 

When the Elf found himself, after an 
eventful passage, alone in the mighty city, 
his delight knew no bounds. The roar of 
countless mingled noises resolved itself into 
a mighty diapason of melodious sound, that 
seemed to him grander than any wind 
among the pines, or thunders of the north. 
The sight of children leaping in the sun, (for 
it was summer time and Michigan Boule- 
vard was full of little ones and their nurses) 
filled his heart with joy, and he ran to join 
them. But no one noticed his salutation, 
nor seemed in the least affected by his dem- 
onstrations of good-fellowship. One little 



no ^mhzx stints. 

golden-headed baby, seated like a young 
Princess within a chariot of silver and blue, 
threw out her hands and laughed as he ap- 
proached, but was wheeled swiftly by, and 
he was left alone. 

"Strange;" he mused; "can it be that 
these grand and glorious mortals are blind, 
that their beautiful eyes see me not?" 

So after awhile he tucked his wings under 
him and nestled into a corner to watch and 
meditate. 

Now be it known that all super-natural 
beings, be they fairies or angels, are en- 
dowed with double sight; the eyes that see 
the external, and the more wonderful eyes 
which look through externals at the heart 
and life. So it came to pass that the Elf was 
witness to many wonderful things, and be- 
ing quick of wit and unfettered by any ma- 
terial biases toward wealth values and so- 
cial ambitions, he very soon put two and 
two together and came to an understanding 
of the problem. He noticed that there was 
something which made many the recipients 
of universal homage, while others walked 
the streets unnoticed and without the be- 
stowal of smile or lifted hat from any who 
passed them by. He saw plainly dressed 



^vxhzx flints. m 

young girls, and delicate, tired-looking 
women whose souls within their breasts 
were like singing birds or blowing lilies, and 
yet they walked apart and gained no meed 
of courtesy or love. He saw men within 
whose breast a snake was coiled, or a wild 
beast crouched, and the way before them 
was like the advance of a king through 
fawning courtiers. Everybody bowed to 
the ground and did them homage. He saw 
women clad in velvets and decked with jew- 
els, and within their breasts was nothing- 
ness and within their heads were feathers, 
and yet they walked with high heads, and 
the passers-by made way before them. 

"It is dress which makes the difference," 
quoth the Elf to himself after awhile. "It 
is not the man or the woman which com- 
mands the mortal world's respect, but the 
garments in which they clothe themselves." 

So, being vested with much power, and 
with a roguish nature withal, the Elf con- 
ceived a plan to while away the time, for the 
bustle of a big city had tired him and he 
was getting a little weary of it all. 

"I will reverse things for an hour," said 
he, "and see what will happen when mortals 



112 ^xixhtx (Mints, 

see each other as they are, and know each 
other as the fairies know them." 

Accordingly he drew a circle about him, 
and sat him down once more to view the 
sport. The first to enter the charmed ring 
was a slip of a girl in a cotton gown, and 
clasping to her breast a picture of anemones 
and violets which she had toiled to paint, 
and was trying to sell that she might buy 
wine and fruit for a dying mother. As she 
stepped within the enchanted circle, lo ! her 
cotton gown changed to lustrous satin, pure 
as a lily's leaf, and on her soft brown hair 
fell the shadow of a golden crown. The 
pictured flowers she carried became genuine 
blossoms, and seemed to have their roots 
within her heart. Amazed, the people who 
saw the transformation rushed to give her 
greeting as a strange and royal Princess 
whom they delighted to know, but she was 
borne swiftly away out of their sight in a 
cloud of snowy whiteness. 

The next who came within the magic ring 
was a portly woman with a double chin, and 
two big red ears weighted down with dia- 
monds. Accompanying her were her 
maiden daughters robed in silk of Parisian 
make and texture, and with ruby-throated 



^ttxhi^x (Minis, 113 

humming-birds upon their bonnets. No 
sooner had the trio stepped within the elfin 
circle than the haughty dame took, on the 
outward semblance of a scrub-woman 
clothed in filthy rags ; her diamonds changed 
to tear drops wrung from the hearts she had 
unjustly dealt with, and her shoes gaped full 
of holes. Her pretty daughters were 
changed to kitchen wenches clothed in 
grease and ashes, and on their heads, where 
erst the murdered bird had drooped its 
bright wings, was a ghastly toad and a 
strangled mouse! The commotion caused 
by this terrible transformation scene, as the 
crowds shrank back with groans and cries, 
was too great to admit of further tarrying 
on the part of the somewhat frightened Elf. 
So he spread his wings and flew away, 
whither, I have not yet been able to learn, 
that I might follow. 



The other day the eternal silence gath- 
ered to itself, softly as a brooding cloud 
summons a mist from the mountains, a ten- 
der wife and mother. I wish I could tell 
you how beautiful the funeral services were 
that consigned what was left of that beau- 



114 ^ttthtx flints. 

tiful personality to the keeping of the res- 
urrection angel ! Although I cannot do that, 
by reason of the sacredness of a grief which 
longs to keep its dead from public mention, 
I can use the memory of this beautiful 
service to point » moral and adorn a tale. 
What spectacle is more revolting to good 
taste and delicate instincts than the formula 
of a modernly conducted funeral? The pro- 
cession of curious strangers who file about 
the coffin! The eye askance at the adorn- 
ment of the dead. The neighbor who drops 
in to see the show as she would attend a 
circus were the admission free. The casual 
onlooker who counts the rows of crape on 
the widow's skirt and the poor thing's sobs 
all in the same breath. 

A poor man's funeral is apt to be nothing 
but a ghastly parade, expensive from first 
to last. ''Shure we'll give him a rousin' 
funeral," says honest Paddy, and the ex- 
pense incurred would have kept his widow's 
bin in coal for a year. The living are made 
to suffer that the unheeding dead may go 
to their grave with a big demonstration. 
If the wealthier classes would simplify these 
final services more and more the effect for 
good upon the poorer classes would be in- 



calculable. As long as time endures the 
poor will imitate the rich. Let the lesson 
set them, then, be wholesome and as sensi- 
ble as possible. May some of us live to see 
the dawn of a new order of things; to see 
funerals become less pretentious and more 
holy; less of a ceremony and more of a sac- 
rament. To see grief off parade; to see 
more tenderness shown the living, and less 
of ostentation displayed when it is too late 
to be of any comfort. Fewer roses held in 
dead hands and more buds clasped in living 
fingers. This would be a welcome sight, I 
think, in the eyes of heaven and the angels. 



Next to a match that won't light is a 
friend who won't stand up for you in an 
emergency. There are lots of friends for 
every one of us who are always ready to say 
a good word for us when we don't need it, 
but when the time comes to test them they 
fly away like birds at the approach of the 
cat. I humbly hope that in the next world, 
if not in this, we shall have a better chance 
to find out what true, unalterable, unscar- 
able, and perfect loyalty is. I should like 
to spend my first few centuries in heaven 



ii6 ^mhzx ^Xinis. 

in the enjoyment of such friendship as I 
have dreamed of here. A friendship that 
cares not one straw whether you are poor 
and illy-clothed or rich and arrayed in pur- 
ple vestments. A friendship that, so long 
as your soul is clean and true, don't care a 
fig how much money you make or how suc- 
cessful you are, but casts its lot with yours 
whether you munch crusts or feed on pheas- 
ants. A friendship that will walk along- 
side whether you walk on cobble stones or 
ride in a carriage over the king's highway. 
Yes, my dear, that experience will be quite 
blissful enough to occupy a few centuries 
without taking up immediate harp practice 
or joining in the grand hallelujahs! 

I would rather visit an old grave-yard 
any day than go listen to the finest sermon 
that was ever preached. I can get nearer 
heaven on a tomb-stone than by any other 
method yet tested. So, when somebody 
said to me in Portland the other day, "Why 
don't you go up on the East Hill and visit 
the old burying-ground?^' I jumped at the 
chance as some folks would to hear Pade- 
rewski play or Spurgeon preach. 



^mhzx flints. 117 

It was a lovely morning, and Portland 
City shone like a newly-swept and gar- 
nished parlor after cleaning day. There was 
not a rose in any one of the pretty side- 
yards of the town that did not wear a pink 
bonnet pinned with a dew-drop stick-pin, 
and not a clematis-vine or a woodbine any- 
where that did not look as though newly 
curled and scented like a dude fresh from a 
barber shop. 

"Did you ever see a prettier city?" asked 
the man who was carrying the lunch-basket 
and the umbrellas, to say nothing of the 
shawl-strap and the novels. 

"It is indeed a beautiful place," answered 
I, "but I think half of its beauty comes by 
comparison. If one had never seen a flower 
one would be prone to magnify the charm 
of even a wayside blossom. It is because we 
have lived in the dirtiest, noisiest and most 
unattractive city in the world so long that 
Portland seems like a marvel of loveliness 
to us." 

"That may be true to a degree," said the 
man with the burden, "but, outside of any 
comparison, I think the Union does not 
hold a cleaner, sweeter or more delightfully- 
situated city than this seaport town." 



ii8 l^mtrjet: CHXiuts. 

By this time we had climbed the hill and 
stood spell-bound on the crest that swept 
the whole country-side, from the blue sea 
on the East to the bluer mountains that 
hovered like sapphire clouds in the West. 
Meadow lands snow-white with daisies 
drifted between, and soft bosomed lakes 
ruffled by crimpling winds spread at our 
feet. Far away the farmers were harvesting 
hay, and the landscape was dotted with 
dimpling hills that freighted each puff of 
wind with a sweetness born of sunshine and 
shower. The picture was so inconceivably 
lovely that we stood long before it, unmind- 
ful of passing time. 

"Just think of the view one gets from any 
standpoint that sweeps Chicago!" said I. 
''For these blue lakes we get the Chicago 
River, an abomination to both sight and 
smell; for these lovely meadow lands and 
rolling hills we get Bridgeport, the Stock 
Yards and miles upon miles of dumping- 
ground and unattractive suburb; and in 
place of the limitless blue of the Atlantic 
we are forced to be content with an area of 
unsalted waterway, beautiful to be sure, but 
painfully inadequate to one who was born 
and brought up by the sea." 



^mhzx flints. 119 

"I don^t like to hear you run down Chi- 
cago so," remonstrated the man upon whom 
the many bundles acted as an anchor to hold 
him steady before the wind. "Chicago is a 
grand city, and can beat the world for activ- 
ity and growth; its match is not to be found 
on either continent." 

"A bull is active when he is chasing a 
man across-country, and a tumor is pos- 
sessed of the attribute of growth. There 
are better things than either, to my manner 
of thinking," said I. "At the same time," I 
continued, while we reluctantly turned our 
backs upon the picture we had been admir- 
ing, "I am willing to grant you that Chicago 
is a splendid town. Its superlative archi- 
tecture and magnificent resources amaze 
even its severest critics, and the world can- 
not produce a grander exhibition of pluck 
and energy than the culmination of the Co- 
lumbian exhibit, but somehow, even while I 
admire, I am reminded of the old mission- 
ary hymn which contains this couplet: 

'Where every prospect pleases, 
And only man is vile.' 

"Take Chicago without seven-eighths of 
its people and I glory in it, but the finest 
vase in the world, if it holds soiled water, is 



120 ^mhi^x ^tiuts. 

not a desirable ornament for a fastidious 
woman's center-table. The past few years 
have attracted a set of people to Chicago 
from all over the world who cannot make 
even splendid architecture and superb 
achievement go down. A pill may be 
molded like a violet and inclosed in a sugar 
capsule, but neither shaping nor covering 
can make it other than a pill and hard to 
swallow." 

By this time we had come to a little 
brown gate that led from the quiet street 
into a quieter one that was tangled all over 
with neglected rose-bushes and buttercups 
grown tired of holding up their goblets to 
the sun. There were marble doorways to 
every house within this little street, but they 
were all tight-closed, and only a few drowsy 
honey-bees were abroad as we stepped with- 
in the inclosure. A sweeter bit of earth 
wherein to seek rest was never granted to 
the weary dead. I hope that when my time 
comes to unloose the shoes from off my pil- 
grim feet I may find as comfortable quar- 
ters for my final bed-chamber. I want just 
such bowery bushes to hedge me in, and I 
want just such crowds of daisies to start a 
colony beneath the "windowless palace" 



^mhzx flints. 121 

where I dream the idle years away. I want 
the children to come and search for wild 
strawberries just as they do every hour of 
the June weather on Portland Hill, and I 
want the same sleepy bird to sing a dozen 
times a day while the sunlight showers its 
golden dust upon the green roof of my 
home. 

For more than an hour we walked on to- 
gether through the grassy lanes of the dear 
old grave-yard. We knelt and parted the 
blossoms from many a head-stone, and read 
the legend of many a young life gone early- 
home to God. In one sunny corner we 
found a patch of baby graves. It seemed 
almost like a flower-bed from which the lit- 
tle souls were blossoming one by one. 
While we watched, a shy wood-rose just 
opening was "baby May ;" a morning-glory^s 
cup, half weighted with a milk-white moth, 
was "baby Jean;" a tuft of tangled forget- 
me-nots held the wondering eyes of a third, 
and a shred of delicate fern was the wind- 
blown hair brushed back from the cherub 
brow of the last of all. Upon a weather- 
beaten, moss-grown stone we read of "Mar- 
jory Thorndike, aged 16," whose spirit took 
up its abode with the holy angels while her 



122 ^WibtTc flints. 

sweet body was laid aside in the dark ward- 
robe of the grave just fifty years ago. Was 
she very pretty, I wonder, and did her 
bright eyes close suddenly upon this glad 
life, or did she pine and fade slowly, like a 
blossom with a blight in its folded bud? 
Were there many left to mourn for Mar- 
jory, or was she the only child of some wid- 
owed mother who followed her light feet 
down to the door of the grave soon after? 
Many of these mounds in Portland church- 
yard are built above the bones of soldier 
boys. The records tell of scores of brave 
lads under twenty-five who died in various 
prisons or were sent home from cruel battle- 
fields. A rain-washed flag floats over their 
graves, and the tears of many such tramps 
as the man with the bundles and I fall often 
upon them. I was not ashamed of the tears, 
nor was I ashamed that I let loose a prayer, 
as Indians do a bird, above every head- 
stone that marked a soldier's resting place. 
Under a lilac tree within whose ancient 
branches the robins built their nests we 
found an old, old grave, the inscription up- 
on which went straight to the heart. "Be 
kind to each other: Mother," it said. I im- 
agined a noisy household of quarrelsome 



^mhzx ^Xitxts. 123 

boys and girls who fought and fussed Hke 
jackdaws. No doubt they loved each other 
well enough — they always do, these squab- 
blers — but they had poor ways of showing 
it, and the pale little mother could never 
make herself heard nor felt in the noisy 
household. Nobody minded her or heeded 
her gentle admonitions. Finally she died, 
as tired-out mothers sometimes do, and, 
stricken by a late remorse, her repentant 
children inscribed one of her unheeded pre- 
cepts upon the tomb-stone and entered into 
a compact to be kind when it was too late to 
cheer her gentle heart with any such re- 
solve. I hope that every time they come to 
this hill-side village, so quaint and old and 
sweet, they look at "mother's" admonishing 
words and enter anew upon a compact they 
shall not break. But where am I? Time is 
up, and still in the grave-yard! Next letter 
I shall have something to tell you of a new 
Paradise and the flaming sword which drove 
me from it. 



I took a long walk the other day, and in 
the course of my ramblings, which, part of 
the way lay through woods, and part of the 



124 J^mt>jeie stints* 

way by the side of birch-crowned bluffs that 
overlooked the sparkling waters of the big 
lake, I met only one thoroughly wretched- 
looking object, and that was a man. I came 
across lots of sheep, and a few cows, with 
here and there a busy colony of chickens, 
and one particularly jolly pig, but every ani- 
mate thing looked care-free and happy, ex- 
cept the man! His hair was grizzled and 
thin, his countenance cadaverous and wan, 
and the furrows on his cheek were like the 
wheel-ruts on a much-traveled road. And 
why? Perhaps, thought I, because he had 
the power of imparting and making inter- 
change of his troubles by means of the gift 
of speech. Who ever heard of a wrinkled- 
faced cow, and yet cows grow old as well as 
men. Who ever saw a sheep with tear- 
bleared eyes, and a wan and sunken face? 
If sheep could meet together and talk of 
their ailments, as we do, and fill the hours 
of a morning call with details of a bad di- 
gestion, the complaints the blessed children 
fall heir to, and the horrors of the domestic 
question, perhaps sheep would grow old 
and wizened before their time, as women 
do. What is mankind's universal form of 
salutation? "How are you?" Thafs the 



^mhtx t&Xinis, 125 

first question we put to each other when we 
meet in the morning, or after a separation, 
and ten to one this question launches a full- 
rigged craft of human misery upon the tide 
of conversation that should be devoted to 
nobler converse. The Turks approach the 
subject more directly with the salutation, 
"How are your bowels?" But although we 
couch our sentiments in more ambiguous 
language, the result is the same. How 
would it do to change the form of inquiry 
to matters pertaining to the spirit rather 
than to the body? How is it with your soul? 
Are you happy? How goes the morning, 
or the day? Would not any of those saluta- 
tions be better than a greeting that plunges 
at once into the condition of the liver, head- 
aches, catarrhs and hay fever? Try it. 

And then when a trouble overtakes us, 
be it little or big, we never go off by our- 
selves as the stricken deer does, or the dog 
wfth a thorn in his foot, but we call our 
neighbors and friends together, or we put 
on our things and run down to mother's to 
talk it over and extract all the gall there is 
from the tribulation. Now it is all right 
when great griefs overtake us to seek hu- 
man sympathy ; without it this world would 



126 ^mHx stints. 

be like a desert land without an oasis, or 
without a rainy shadow betwixt us and the 
glaring, scorching sun. But half the little 
hurts of life it were nobler and more heroic 
to bear alone. If you need to take a par- 
ticularly nasty dose of medicine, is it worth 
while to force every member of the family 
to share the dose, or to run around and com- 
pel all your acquaintances to taste also? 
Castor-oil and family troubles are far better 
taken in individual doses, and not adminis- 
tered on the communistic plan. 

Another misery that would be spared us 
were speech denied us, and from which 
dumb animals are forever shielded, is the 
excruciating torment of having to talk when 
one has nothing to say. Have you not 
been there all of you? Seated tete-a-tete to 
a man or a woman at a lunch or on a picnic 
excursion, with whom it was as difficult to 
start a conversation as to raise bangs on a 
billiard-ball. How you struggle inwardly, 
and writhe in the throes of an attempt to 
start a topic! How you cast about for a 
witty remark to make that cast-iron counte- 
nance relax, or a pathetic story to bring 
moisture to those fish eyes! Such agony 
leaves its trace on heart and brain, and it is 



purely the gift of human speech. A flock 
, of sheep on a summer day lay out in the 
clover, nibble at the sorrel, chew the cud 
of Happy fancy and are supremely happy 
without the interchange of a single sound. 
But a flock of men and women turned loose 
in a parlor for an evening party! Of what 
do they talk? With a babble of words, what 
do they say? Anything worth remember- 
ing? Anything uplifting? Anything help- 
ful and strong? For anything that an angel 
might stop to jot down in his commonplace 
book they might far better be dumb sheep. 
There is nothing so inane under the sun as 
the conversation of people who have no 
ideas. The froth of whipped eggs is a tonic 
compared to it. I would rather spend my 
life with the cattle upon the hills and the 
sheep in the fold, than put in a year with a 
brainless, idealess woman, or a society dude. 
Silence is heaven sent and born of eternal 
wisdom compared to the crackling of a fool's 
laughter and the braying of a fool's conver- 
sation. From both, dear Lord, deliver us! 



j^fr 



A well-meaning friend sent me four hens 
and a rooster the other day, because, as he 



128 ji^mbjev t&tinU, 

said, he was going to town to live, and 
thought perhaps I would enjoy keep- 
ing a few fowls. I am not the kind 
of woman to keep chickens. I am 
not sufficiently chastened. I cannot 
restrain the impulse to throw things at 
them when, looking out of the window, I 
behold them at this moment roosting on a 
tree instead of in the lordly mansion pre- 
pared for them. They are nearly frozen. 
There is a spark of vitality left, perhaps, in 
the Leghorn, but I think the rooster and the 
Brahmas have been dead for days. I tried 
to hire a boy to climb up the tree and fetch 
them down, but he seemed to think the of- 
fer I made him of a quarter for the job en- 
tirely inadequate. Ah, well! to-morrow 
morning I shall go out with a pole and dis- 
lodge them from the branches of the tree, as 
a happy child knocks down apples. And 
the fowls will not be dead after all, but with 
demoniac cries they will elude me and enter 
the domains of my next-door neighbor. And 
the dog will join in the chase, until the 
sport shall wax so deadly that I shall go in 
search of the friend who has thus embit- 
tered my days and cleave his hemlet with a 
hatchet. 



^mhzic CSIittts. 129 

I know what mighty culminations are 
evolved from chicken-keeping. I have 
alienated life-long friends, shattered the in- 
timacies of years, and brought down upon 
myself the seven vials of wrath too often in 
the past not to know what lies in store for 
me if my brood of chickens multiply and 
come forth to possess the land. By and by 
there will be a holy terror of a game-cock 
hatched-, and he will depopulate the country 
round about of feathered bipeds. Com- 
plaints will be made, and there will be the 
wild alarm of shot-guns around my peaceful 
dwelling, as enraged poultry-owners from 
far and near bear down upon my fighting 
rooster. 

And later on my neighbor will cultivate 
flower-beds and tender vegetables, and I 
shall hire boys to watch these goblin fowls 
by day, that they molest not the garden beds, 
until my bank account dwindles to a mem- 
ory and my credit becomes a by-gone 
dream. And I shall buy all my eggs, save one 
or two a week which the weasels and the 
rats spare me from out my own hen-house. 

And when our stomachs yearn for chick- 
en-meat there shall be no one in all the 
household who will dare behead a fowl. I 
9 



130 ^mhi^x (flints. 

shall try it, perhaps^ and feel like first cousin 
to Cain ever after, although my deed will 
be but a futile attempt. And finally, im- 
poverished, nervously prostrated, a mere 
wreck, I shall give every chicken away and 
tread the earth a "free man" once more, by 
reason of the removal of their "shadow from 
my door and their beak from out my heart 
forever." Take my advice, my dear, and 
when a friend says chicken to you next, 
go get a shot-gun, point it at him, and 
leave the issue to his own discretion. 



How the pawn-shops are filling up this 
jolly winter weather. Stand before any one 
of them, and see how like the maws of 
wolves they fatten on man's misfortune. 
There, in one corner, hangs a string of 
coral beads. They clasped a baby's dim- 
pled throat once, perhaps, but the baby 
grew cold and hungry for something better 
than crusts and away she flew to heaven. 
Don't you believe it hurt the mother to 
bring those beads and pawn them for 
money to buy a basket of coal? 



^mhzx WixnU* 131 

And there is a guitar, tied with a bow of 
faded ribbon. What are the fingers doing 
now, I wonder, that once picked out dainty 
tunes from these strings, and where sounds 
, the voice that filled the pretty home parlor 
with its melody in those bright days be- 
fore hard times came knocking at the door? 
Before the window stands a blue and shiv- 
ering wretch, and in his hand he holds — 
what? A bit of a looking-glass, framed in 
antique silver. No wonder he doesn't care 
to keep a mirror to reflect such bloated 
features. The eyes that would look back 
at him from its depths are not the eyes that 
were lifted from his crib long years ago to 
meet a mother's morning kiss! Away 
with the useless thing then! It will bring 
enough to purchase a hot toddy and forget- 
fulness, surely. 

See the rings hanging on the hooks. Not 
one of them but could tell a tale that would 
harrow your comfort-taking soul. Wedding 
rings bartered for merely enough money 
to buy a six-penny loaf. And yet, when 
those little yellow circlets of gold went on, 
they stood for deathless hope, and an eter- 
nity of love! Engagement jewels, pawned 
from dire necessity, and never to be re- 



132 ^tahj^ flints. 

claimed by the poor, heartbroken women 
bankrupt of happiness long before they 
were of trust. But it strikes me we are get- 
ting too near the seamy side of things. Let 
us call a halt and say good-night. 



It is not the worst thing in the world to 
be called a crank. I find as I go about the 
earth that whenever a man is found with in- 
dividuality enough to take a stand against 
being nothing more than a conformist he 
is a crank. Wherever a woman is found 
who thinks more of her brain than of the 
hat which surmounts it, she is a crank. 
Wherever a man is found who believes he 
was made for some other purpose than to 
walk shoulder to shoulder with the ''great 
alike/' as a convict in stripes keeps step 
with his comrade, he is a crank. Where- 
ever a young girl is found who is fonder 
of frolic than of fashion, of her friends than 
of their reputation, who will stand by her 
lover through a prison record and the other 
side of prison bars, she is a crank. Re- 
formists are all cranks. Discoverers are 



^mhzic CSIittts. 133 

cranks. Philanthropists and poets are 
cranks. John Howard would be a sad 
crank to-day did he carry the whiteness of 
his life through dungeon cells to reform 
them. Christopher Columbus, Robert Ful- 
ton, Watts, the discoverer of steam, were 
horrible cranks, as viewed from to-day's 
standpoint. Ber^h^ who has done more 
than any other living man to lighten brute 
suffering;, is a crank. 

Please, when I die, dear friends, carve 
simply on my tombstone, ''Amber, a 
Crank." 



"Have you seen the tulips yet?" asked the 
Young Person the other morning. 

"1 have not,^' said I, and promised forth- 
with that I would take the first opportunity 
to go out and see the wonderful lake shore 
beds. But I knew well enough that I 
should never behold them in their splendor, 
as she had done. And why? Because it is 
a very different thing, my dear, to visit beds 
of tulips all alone by yourself on the shady 
side of your years, afoot, and wearily hold- 
ing your skirts from the dirt; grasping a 
bundle and dragging a superfluous umbrel- 



134 ^mhzx stints* 

la by the hair of its head, from what it is 
to visit them under the banner of youth, 
with a gay cavaUer at your side, and the 
sound of your own laughter to fill the gaps 
of idle speech with music. 

It creates a very different atmosphere 
through which to view anything this side 
of heaven (especially twilight and tulips)^ 
whether your age be i6 or y6; whether you 
ride in a cart behind a thoroughbred or 
trudge on your own tired feet with a twinge 
of rheumatics in your left ankle; or whether 
you be newly in love, or long since surfeited 
with the brimstone and honey of that er- 
ratic passion. 



Was ever a bluer day than that which 
folded the lake in its soft embrace the time 
we really saw the tulip beds? Was ever a 
battle so closely drawn as that between the 
haze in the air and the new foliage on the 
trees? Was ever a world so blithe and 
beauty laden, reeled, sparkling, from the 
spinning wheel of May? Upon the velvet 
lawn the trees cast fleeting shadows, as 
girls who dance to and fro before a mirror 
leave reflections of their loveliness therein. 



^mhj^ic (flints* 135 

And the tulips! Imagine all the beautiful 
women you have ever seen or known, drawn 
up in ball dress array to dance a minuet. 
Imagine a fleet of sunset clouds adrift be- 
fore the wind. Imagine God^s thoughts 
made manifest in beauty so boundless. So 
free, so all-pervading that even the most 
worthless, sin-scarred and battle-wrecked of 
all humanity was welcome to draw near and 
bask in the sight. 



m* 



There is a wee little cat, black as Satan, 
which every day comes out of a court win- 
dow near to where I write and watches with 
unblinking desire a fluflf of canary feathers 
and song that hops within a cage not far 
away. Only a yard or so of space separates 
the bird from the cat, and if tireless per- 
sistence and unwavering desire ever accom- 
plished anything in this world, the taste of 
canary bird meat is going to become an es- 
tablished fact to puss very soon. Somehow 
the long continued strain of the thing is 
making me nervous. It is like seeing 
Othello always standing with the fatal pil- 
low poised above poor Desdemona's head, 



136 ^xahtx ^XintB. 

or the horrid old uncle watching from be- 
hind a tree the pretty babes at play, plotting 
their desertion in the woods and their sad 
and cruel doom of death. I should like to 
draw a parallel right here between the cat 
and the '^masher," the bird and the silly 
girl who encourages his advances. But 
what is the use? As long as the old earth 
spins, and man grinds at the wheel; as long 
as the sun urges his golden car through the 
dusty highway of the stars, men and women 
will be fools, and the grave will prove the 
only refuge from the cruelty of the one 
and the folly of the other. You might as 
well stand by a pasture fence and tell a 
young colt not to frisk, or look up into a 
hawthorn tree and tell a bird not to build 
its nest among the blossoms as to try and 
regulate the hearts of men, or dictate the 
caprices of women. 



>@« 



A robin was singing under my window 
this morning. I spied him there while I 
was dressing, and watched him so long that 
I missed my train. But his song was worth 
the lost hour. How he fluttered, and 



Ji^mtrjev Cl^Xitxts. 137 

cocked his smooth, brown head and ac- 
tually winked before he began ! His breast 
shone in the sunshine like a mellow peach, 
or like a bit of sunset cloud fallen earth- 
ward. His bright eyes glanced hither and 
yon, watchful, saucy, alert for interruptions. 
Suddenly he gurgled a few delicious open- 
ing notes. Then he discoursed with some 
severity upon the deceitful qualities of 
March, and the general unsatisfactoriness 
of early sunshine. He told me confidential- 
ly, of a discovery he had made of fresh 
hypatica leaves in the woods, and of a sud- 
den sortie of grass dragoons along the loos- 
ened water courses. He mentioned his ex- 
pectations for April, and how he had an eye 
on a corner lot in our southerly woodbine 
for building purposes. Oh, how golden 
sweet his song became when he trilled his 
hopes as to the successful wooing of little 
Miss Redbreast, although he contrived to 
let me know, in a roundelay aside, he found 
the young person rather feather-headed and 
hard to win. Domestic duties, however, 
he chirped, would settle her down soon 
enough. He laughed a little self-con- 
sciously as he pictured a home atilt in the 
blossoms, and asked me with some concern 



138 ^mhzic (fl>lint&. 

and a burst of lullaby notes, if I really 
thought that early worms were too rich a 
diet for very young birds. He sparkled 
into delicious romanzas, and mellowed into 
soft cadenzas; the stir of spring, the breeze 
of the hills, the breath of arbutus, the patter 
of April rain, the promise of violets, the dip 
of songful water, all sounded in the song 
he sang me, and when he spread his wings 
and tilted away I kissed the Young Person 
and vowed the world was a dear, delightful 
place to live in, after all, despite the trials 
of moving time, and house hunting — so 
let's be jolly, dear — let's be jolly while rob- 
ins sing, and spring is on the way ! 



»^« 



A few hours more and Sunday will again 
be with us. How differently the day is 
passed in our homes from what it used to 
be. In my childhood it was ushered in by 
dreadful preparatory scrubbings, during 
which the nurse polished ofif my face with 
a big crash towel and assured me that how- 
ever much ''good little gells" cried on week- 
days, they were never known under the 



Jimfejev (Mints. 139 

most harrowing circumstances to shed a 
tear on Sunday, that is if they cherished the 
faintest hope of going to heaven when they 
died. I always attended "divine service" as 
it was called, although why the gathering 
together to sing songs of One we love, and 
say all the good things about Him we could, 
should be called ''service," was even then 
a conundrum to my infant brain. Caraway 
seeds and peppermint-drops were supplied 
to keep me from slumber during the long 
dry sermon. I remember that I wore blue 
shoes at that early stage of my existence^ 
and I can even now recall how tired I used 
to get stretching them out to match them 
with the blue places in the sky which I 
could see through the window. We always 
remained through intermission to attend 
Sunday school. A harrowing stroll through 
the grave-yard took up the noon hour, and 
then came infant class, presided over by a 
grizzly old sister in the church who loved 
to curdle our baby blood with allusions to 
the "worm that never died" and the lake 
that seethed with '^fire and brimstone.^' 
After those exhilarating services, came an- 
other long sermon for which even unlimited 
peppermint-drops offered no alleviation. 



140 Jimfejeie CUtittts^ 

Then came a ride home during which my 
feeble intellect was taxed to remember text 
and topics. Then a cold dinner and an 
afternoon of Bible reading and verse mem- 
orizing. No music enlivened the day, no 
romps or out of door frolics were allowed; 
so that long before the years of discrimina- 
tion, I came to regard Sunday as the one 
jet bead strung with the other six pearls of 
the week's calendar. 

How glorious the change from the old 
bigotries and superstitions of the past. Gone 
forever the idea that He who sent little chil- 
dren, and birds, and bonnie blue w^eather 
into the world is content that we gather 
nothing but withered garlands and dead 
leaves. As w^l pick sagebrush when roses 
are blowing, or sit down cellar when all the 
shining outside world is ours, as seek to 
maintain the Sabbath with the old-time re- 
strictions and limitations. Draw a big 
black line at the theater door, taboo min- 
strel melodies and noisy sports, but let us 
have a Sunday such as I hope we shall 
spend ten thousand times ten thousand to- 
gether up in heaven, full of peace and lov- 
ing thoughts, cheer and sunshine, helpful 
deeds for one another, earnest strivings 



^mhtx (dXitxts. 141 

God-ward, heavenward and humankind- 
ward. 



There was a Httle friend closely inter- 
woven with my life long ago, when time 
(for me) was young, whose memory comes 
back to me with each radiant return of 
spring, and of whom I have a fancy to talk 
to you to-night. 

As I remember her, the child was an in- 
nocent-faced little thing, with wide eyes of 
golden brown, shaded by soft lashes, and 
a head closely covered with a feathery crop 
of golden hair. We were inseparable 
companions, and there is not an experience 
of my child life with which her memory is 
not allied. The first definite recollection I 
have of her, is that of a May day long ago, 
when I lost myself in the deep woods while 
gathering flowers, and sat me down in her 
company to wait for God to come to our 
relief. So implicit was that little child's 
faith that He would come, that I felt no fear 
when the shadows fell around me, and into 
the depths of the twilight sky, one by one 
stole the silvery stars. 



142 ^ttxhi^ic flints. 

I remember just how the thrushes sang 
in the tops of the tall trees, and how long it 
seemed before our deliverance came. I 
remember questioning her, as we sat on our 
bed of moss, how she thought it possible 
that God could have been started without 
anybody to make Him^, and if she really 
believed He was going to go on living for- 
ever, and forever, and forever! The 
thought grew too heavy at last for our little 
minds to uplift, and we lay back on our 
velvet couch, and looked away into the 
depths of the starry sky and wept for very 
wonder. 

I remember how we cheered one another 
by enacting the drama of the deserted babes, 
and gently wooed the twilight birds to cover 
us with leaves, a proceeding which they de- 
clined to carry out with many twitters of 
sleepy song. 

I date the memory of my little friend 
chiefly from this experience, for the reason 
that then, for the first time, we were left 
alone, and dependent upon one another for 
comfort and cheer. After that afternoon 
she and I were often by ourselves. We 
found a nest away up among the singing 
branches of a willow tree where we used to 



^ttxhi^x CdXiixts* 143 

lie for hours, and dream our fairy dreams 
together. There we often sought to solve 
the riddle of a strange perplexing world. 
What was the power which curved the great 
blue sky above our heads, and kept the 
sun and stars in place upon it? Whence 
came the winds, and whither did they go? 
Why, without note of warning or sound of 
rushing wings, did great clouds rush into 
the sky, and what voice was that which 
spoke in thunder from the shadowed hills? 
What was the lightning, and who kindled 
it? Why did the wild rose always bear 
the same kind of flower, and the apple tree 
never forget itself and put forth a plum? 
What made the bee blunder so awkwardly 
against the holly hocks, and settle within 
their flaring cups with such an endless fret 
and flurry? Who taught the birds to build 
their nests? and was all the music of the 
earth copied from the score of their minstrel 
notes? Why did the blue-dragon fly never 
sit still, and was it kind in God to let the 
'^devil's darning needle^^ sew up little chil- 
dren's ears? Where would we go when we 
died, as Neighbor Jordan's baby did, and 
was it not wicked to leave a baby all alone 
in the grave-yard with nobody nigh to 



144 ^xtxhi^x Wixnts, 

keep it warm and cuddled? What was a 
ghost, and did it really walk about at mid- 
night in a white sheet? Wouldn^t we be 
apt to get tired singing psalm-tunes up in 
heaven forever? And wouldn't it be nice 
if God would keep a special place for little 
girls who didn't care to sing or play on 
harps? If a bird could fly in the air, why 
couldn't a little girl with a big umbrella? 
If heaven was just the other side of the sky, 
why didn't the angels ever fall through? Per- 
haps the stars were their shining feet twink- 
ling over the crystal floor ! Who made the 
grass know just when to turn green, or told 
the trees when to unfold their leaves? 

These are but a few of the questions that 
we were wont to ponder, and, although the 
years are many since we rocked together 
in our willow-bough cradle, the answer has 
never yet been revealed. She, perhaps, has 
learned the mystery of it all, for she left 
me suddenly one day never to return, and 
perhaps in the mystic land whither she has 
vanished, the secrets of nature are all re- 
vealed. 

She was a truthful creature, that blessed 
little girl, and her heart was pure as un- 
stained snow. She was trustful, and con- 



^mhzx (&Xinis* 145 

fiding, and tender, too. She thought no 
evil, and she did no wrong. Beyond a 
childish naughtiness now and then, her baby 
soul was free from the defilement of sin. 

Ah, me, the difference between us now! 
I hold in my hands, to-night, the withered 
stalk whereon life's rose should blossom 
fair and dewy-sweet, and find it bears but 
a few scorched and wind-torn leaves ! Could 
but my childhood's angel have tarried with 
me, would not these flowers have kept their 
freshness and their fragrance to the last? 

None but God can tell why she left me, 
and why, deprived of her presence, I have 
grown so far away from heaven. Can it 
be that she went because I grew to ridi- 
cule her pretty faiths and simple creeds? 
We first fell out over "Santa Claus" and 
came to open rupture I remember, when 
I laughed at her idea that he lived in a pal- 
ace in the Northern Lights, and kept a 
herd of immortal reindeers. We grew far- 
ther and farther apart each year, in our be- 
lief that new-born mortals were found in 
the trunks of hollow trees, and that the 
angels laid them there fresh from the arms 
of God. Her assertion that every time a 
baby smiled in its sleep, the cherub angels 



146 ^mhzic (flints. 

were whispering in its little pink ear, made 
me laugh, and gradually created a coldness 
between us. 

For a long time she continued to accom- 
pany me wherever I went, and with whom- 
ever I chose to walk, but when the village 
boys began by and by to try and turn our 
heads with flattery, and gently chaffed her 
simple ways, she drew aside and only 
watched me from afar. But though sun- 
dered by day, we never slept apart, and it 
was she who for long years kept up the sim- 
ple habit of repeating the prayer we learned 
together at our mother's knee. 

The day she left me, to return no more, 
I never can forget! She carried with her 
so much that made life radiant, that look- 
ing backward to-night, a long way on my 
journey towards the beautiful gate, I shade 
my dazzled eyes, as one watching from a 
shadowy land the break of golden billows 
beneath a sparkling sun. We had been 
growing farther and farther apart for a 
long time, until it came to be that only ' 
at prayer time, or during the singing of 
some heavenly hymn, or when picking 
flowers together on a fair spring morning, 
when God seemed very near to us, we held 



^mhj^TC ^XinU. 147 

counsel. She had grown so etherial of 
presence that she seemed scarcely more 
than a spirit standing by my side, as im- 
palpable as a wreath of mist, or a falling 
flake of downy snow. I stood before my 
mirror, one day, dressed for my coming out 
party. About my neck were clasped the 
first jewels I had ever worn and in my 
heart the happy consciousness that I was 
free to enter the untried realm of woman- 
hood, and gather its roses (I knew nothing 
then of its thorns!) thrilled my soul with 
foolish joy! Just behind me, her dim eyes 
full of tears, her lips tremulous with a smile 
of unutterable longing and love, I saw my 
Child Angel, my little constant friend and 
companion. From those sweet lips there 
came, like the chime of unseen and far-of¥ 
silver bells, these words: 

''Farewell! You have no further need 
of me I My ways are no longer your ways, 
nor my thoughts your thoughts. You have 
put aside the things that made us one; you 
are entering upon a life where I cannot fol- 
low. Farewell! a long, but not an eternal 
farewell. For, when tired out and disap- 
pointed, your hands torn and bleeding with 
the thorns you must gather with your roses. 



148 Ji^mfeje^ stints. 

your heart emptied of its dreams, and sigh- 
ing, for the innocent deHghts of those days 
which we have spent together, your feet 
draw near the gate which naught but your 
dying breath can waft ajar, I will meet you 
again, and lead you very gently along the 
way that shall bring you at last to the pres- 
ence of your God, and into everlasting 
peace and rest." 

Thus saying, my child-nature departed. 
The angel in me stole heavenward again, 
and left me what I am. 



^'Six months pass sometimes between 
the glimpses I get of friend or neighbor 
outside of my own household.'' 

The above sentence in a letter just re- 
ceived from a woman who has lived for the 
past ten years on a ranch away out West 
has set me thinking very tenderly to-night 
of lonely women. 

There is always some variety in a man's 
life which lifts it out of monotony. The 
wood-chopper, whose strong, vehement 
strokes lay the forest monarch low, its 



^mhzx (dtiuts. 149 

leafy crown never again to uplift itself joy- 
ously in the sun-bright spaces of the air, 
works hard and goes home tired, but the 
labor he has accomplished hasn't dulled his 
faculties nor benumbed his very life cur- 
rents, as the unending drudgery of his 
duties have affected the wife who has stayed 
within doors all day long, washing dishes, 
peeling potatoes, baking bread, patching 
trousers and nursing babies. For her there 
is no stepping off the treadmill, no change 
of scene, until the last hour which drops the 
tattered old curtain, extinguishes the glim- 
mering lights and proclaims the long and 
stupid drama ended. It seems a very pre- 
tentious thing to attempt a word of cheer 
and solace for such lives. God knows they 
need it, though — a hand stretched out, a 
song dropped in the night, to revive long- 
slumbering hope. When I see, as I some- 
times do, a sensitive, delicate nature with 
a heart like May sunshine, shedding its 
brightness in a home and upon hearts as 
unappreciative as is a glacier of the sun- 
bright rays that dance and quiver above its 
frozen bosom; when I see such a soul, cre- 
ated to shine and cheer and bless, strug- 
gling for existence, and mated to a life as 



150 ^mhtic (flints. 

cold and bloodless as a shoal of shad, I am 
tempted to wonder if eternal vigilance is not 
at fault, fallen asleep like the watch on deck 
and letting human lives go to pieces on the 
breakers that might have outridden all the 
billows of the sea and entered triumphant 
into the port of peace. Everything seems 
haphazard as to the adjustment of destinies 
half the time. The woman fitted to adorn 
any sphere gets shunted off on a side track, 
and is unnoticed and forgotten, while some 
empty-headed sister whom it would have 
been a special mercy to have obliterated 
flashes down the main track in all the glory 
of screaming whistle and flying flag. 

My dear, the only way to conquer a cast- 
iron destiny is to yield to it. You will 
break to pieces if you are always casting 
yourself against a rock. Sit down on the 
'^sorrowing stone" now and then; you can- 
not help it, but don't go on flinging your- 
self headlong against it. If life holds noth- 
ing finer and sweeter than the routine of 
uncongenial labor, if all the pleasant dreams 
and hopes of youth remain but as fabrics 
from which the bright colors are washed 
away, if ambition and joy and spirit were 
drowned long ago in that unstayed flood 



S^vxMx flints. 151 

of dishwater which has proved the watery 
grave of many a brilHant career, if goodly 
intention and noble purpose glimmered only 
a little now and then from out the murky 
environments of your life like fisher lights at 
sea, accept the inevitable bravely, like a sol- 
dier undergoing hardships but sure of some- 
thing better to come. Do not sit down and 
cry over those poor old "might have beens" 
like children shedding tears over last year's 
broken dandehon chains. Just accept your 
hard lot as students do allotted tasks, con- 
tent to know that by and bye will surely 
bring vacation time, the unending holidays 
and home. Remember how many other- 
wise sweet natures lie all about us, spoiled 
by prosperity like over ripe apples in the 
sun. Perhaps had Providence granted you 
the fulfillment of all your hopes you would 
have become joined to your idols, with no 
higher aspirations than worldly things. If 
your lot is cast desolate and alone, and yet 
if heaven has given you children, mold the 
lives of those children into heroes and gen- 
tlewomen as brave and sweet as ever bright- 
ened the courts of kings. What need have 
you to repine at your loneliness when God 
has made of every mother a divine sculptor. 



152 ^rahzx Cl^Xttxts. 

to create gods and goddesses in her own 
workshop. In the guidance and training of 
those precious souls you have work enough 
to do to forbid an idle or a repining mo- 
ment. Above all, cultivate the small op- 
portunities you have. Learn patience 
through the repeated overthrow of patience, 
sweetness through trial, and strength 
through defeat, remembering that we do 
not grow so much by externals as we do 
by the impulses within us that set our 
thoughts heavenward. We cannot be 
thwarted by any evil that does not find lodg- 
ment in our hearts any more than a lily can 
be changed into a wild parsnip by a lot of 
little boys pegging putty-balls at it. Nothing 
can stop us if we are bound to grow. He 
alone is our judge, to Him alone shall we 
yield the record of life's troubled day, and 
I think His very first word, His first smile, 
will waft away the memory of our loneliness 
and our tears as dust is wafted before the 
summer wind. 



There is just one thing in the latter part 
of the nineteenth century that never fails 



^mhtx mints. 153 

to bring success, and that is assurance. If 
you are going to make yourself known it is 
no longer the thing to quietly pass out a 
visiting card — you must advance with a 
trumpet and blow a brazen blast to shake 
the stars. The time has gone by when 
self-advancement can be gained by modest 
and unassuming methods. To stand with 
a lifted hat and solicit a hearing savors of 
mendicancy and an humble spirit. The 
easily abashed and the diffident may starve 
in a garret, or go die on the highways — 
there is no chance for them in the jostling 
rush of life. The gilded circus chariot, 
with a full brass band and a plump goddess 
distributing circulars, is what takes the pop- 
ular heart by storm. Your silent entry into 
town, depending upon the merits of your 
wares to gain an audience or work up a cus- 
tom, is chimerical and obsolete. We no 
longer sit in the shadow and play flutes ; we 
mount a pine platform and blow on a trom- 
bone, and in that way we draw a crowd, 
and that is what we live for. Who are the 
women who succeed in business ventures 
of any sort? Mostly the mannish, bold, 
aggressive amazons who are unmindful of 
rebuffs and impervious to contempt. Who 



154 ^nxhtx (Mints. 

are the men who wear diamonds and live 
easy lives? Largely the poHticians who 
have made their reputation in bar-room ros- 
trums and among- sharpers. Oh, for a 
wind to blow us forward a hundred years 
out of this age of sordid self-seeking and 
impudent assertiveness into something 
larger and sweeter and finer. Give us less 
yeast in our bread and more substance; fill 
our cups with wine rather than froth, and 
for sweet pity's sake hang up the great 
American trumpet and let "silence, like a 
poultice, come to heal the blows of sound." 



I had entertained some thought of invest- 
ing in Blank's Sarsaparilla as a family blood 
purifier, but since my tour Eastward I have 
decided to perish, with every member of 
my family, of eczema and go to my grave 
tattooed with boils rather than encourage 
the shameless proprietors of that much-ad- 
vertised drug. There is not a moss-covered 
roof, nor a rocky bluff, nor a modest fence- 
post between here and the Atlantic coast 
that is not lettered in flaring yellow char- 



^mhi^x (MinU. 155 

acters a foot long: 'Take Blank's Sarsa- 
parilla." Along the beautiful Mohawk 
Valley, where bonnie Eloise once flitted like 
a fairy, the stern mandate confronts you: 
*'Take Blank's Sarsaparilla." Where Niag- 
ara flings out its emerald colors to leap 
the rainbow-tinted chasm, just over the way 
from the railroad track gleams the hideous 
behest: • 'Take Blank's Sarsaparilla." 
Every village is skirted with it, and in Utica 
I believe it was that I saw an aged darky 
whose back was emblazoned with the text. 
One of the things that will have to be elim- 
inated from the future, to make it heaven, 
will be the sordid greed of human nature. 
Next to the man who wantonly cuts down 
a tree, or shoots meadow larks for pie, or 
turns his front yard into a potato patch, is 
the man who rents out his barn roof or the 
big rock in his pasture land for advertising 
drugs. 



Well, I have seen a ballet at last worth 
seeing. It was the other night at the Madi- 
son Square Garden in New York. Some- 
body came home late with tickets, and pro- 
posed we go over and hear the wonderful 



156 ^mhi^x (Stints. 

Strauss and see the ballet of which the 
papers had so much to say. Then what a 
scurrying there was for bonnets and things. 
How strange it is that a woman is so con- 
structed that she can never take a sudden 
start. If necessity calls a man to Europe 
all he has to do is to fling his things into a 
grip along with a box of cigars, put on his 
hat and go. But a woman has to shop and 
fume and fret until she would be too tired to 
enjoy paradise if she ever got there. But 
in spite of being a quarter of an hour late, 
the concert had not commenced when v/e 
took our seats. The building is the Audi- 
torium in willow and water colors. There 
is space without massiveness and sumptu- 
ousness. The seating capacity is, if I re- 
member rightly, about seventy thousand. 
Perhaps I may be mistaken, but according 
to my recollection the above figures were 
mentioned to me as correct. The back- 
ground of the great stage represented 
chaos. Creation had not yet been evolved 
when the artist took his stand to paint that 
background. An infinitude of clouds, som- 
ber and tipped with gold, fleecy as young 
lamb's wool, yet bearing terrible sugges- 
tions of thunderbolts and tornadoes in their 



disordered bosom. Presently out stepped 
a dapper little fellow, raised his baton and 
the music commenced. If that was Strauss, 
at first I was disappointed. But as I 
watched him the wonder grew that one 
small man could so embody music's self. 
Every movement was a harmony. The wave 
of his baton brought music in showers from 
the very air. Crescendos and diminuendos 
rained about him like water drops. His 
face, so calm and yet so strong, shone like 
a flame above the orchestra that followed 
every move of his baton as a magnet the 
steel. The tempo of the Strauss music is 
almost too fast for dancing. Butterflies 
in the sunshine, or sparks in a high wind, or 
leaves in a gale, might keep step to the 
waltzes, but slow-footed mortals must fall 
far behind. After the music came the bal- 
let. The scene was laid among the flowers, 
in the dawn of a June morning. Columbia 
was about to choose her favorite. Tall 
branches of white lilies waved sleepily, vio- 
lets slept at the foot of mossy banks, roses 
bloomed against green trellises, fuchsias 
and daisies, daffodils and dandelions, snow- 
drops and tulips, every flower possible to 
name, was grouped about the stage. 



15S ^mhtic MinU. 

Suddenly one of the clouds opened and 
a sylph in silver gray, poised by invisible 
wires, floated above the garden. She rep- 
resented the South wind, whose mission it 
was to awaken the flowers. Gradually the 
insects awoke and joined together in a wav- 
ering dance. Butterflies, dragonflies, katy- 
dids and bumble-bees, all superbly cos- 
tumed, darted in and out between the 
groups of garden beauties. The day grew 
and the clouds were tinted with sunrise 
tints. Then the flowers awoke and were 
drawn into the mazes of the dance. At 
this point the vast stage displayed a wealth 
of color impossible to describe. Imagine 
a garden full of all the varieties of flowers 
known to tropic lands in motion. The 
music was grand, and the dancing some- 
thing to dream about. Columbia in seeking 
her favorite flower summoned each one be- 
fore her throne. None charmed her as 
the golden-rod, bedecked in plumes of dusty 
yellow and wound about with sheaves of 
green. At last, throned on a pedestal and 
royal in vivid calcium lights, this flower was 
crowned the queen of floral realm and fav- 
orite of Columbia's flowers. The scenic 



^mhi^x (flints. 159 

splendors were hidden away behind green 
curtains, and the evening's entertainment 
was at an end. Seated near us during the 
hours of our tarrying in the hall was a group 
that I mourn to think I shall never meet 
again. A father and his two daughters, 
who seemed each one to have stepped from 
out the covers of a romance. Where do 
you find in actual life such courtly manners 
and such girlish grace? No furbelows, no 
bangs, no frills. The dignity of the gen- 
tleman and a certain humorous twinkle in 
his clear eye, combined with the uncon- 
scious manners of the daughters, their en- 
thusiasm and their fresh young beauty, con- 
vinced me that they were visions and not 
actualities in this hoidenish and self-seeking 
age. A supper at Delmonico's to round off 
the music and the ballet proved the capstone 
to an edifice that might have been built in 
Spain. Chicago has no Delmonico's; there 
is but one on earth, and New York claims 
it. 



Do you never feel like calling out to the 
galloping years to come to a halt? This 



i6o ^mhtic ^XinU. 

break-neck race of time is going to land us 
all too soon over the border. For my 
part I would like to slow up for awhile. I 
see my neighbor growing gray; I wonder 
how my own head looks. I see the children 
of yesterday wheeling perambulators for 
their own little "bald-headed tyrants/' and 
it strikes me that at this rate you and I will 
be old folks before we know it. The CJirist- 
mases come and go like the wooden animals 
on a carousal ring; while the band plays 
and the children laugh a dozen revolutions 
are finished. It used to be a good long time 
from Christmas to Christmas, but now it 
is like the dip of a swallow's wing or the 
shadow of a cloud. I think the calendars 
are not so reliable as they used to be. The 
seasons are constant, but they are in a great- 
er hurry. Spring used to take off her things 
and sit awhile ; now she only stops to throw 
a bunch of lilacs in at the window and flits 
away. Summer an»d autumn used to make 
themselves at home and linger long and 
pleasantly, but of late years the former 
weaves a garland which is hardly finished 
before the latter breathes upon it and it 
drops to pieces. As for winter^ he barely 



^Wibi^x dXitxts. i6i 

takes time to show us his wares of dia- 
monds and ermine and laces before he is 
summoned back to the land of nowhere. 
God bless us, every one. Where shall we 
all be this time fifty twelve-months? 



i62 ^mJbzx CHXittts* 



CHAPTER IV. 
"I stood on the bridge at midnight." 

Over my head the silent heaven, flecked 
with the fine dust of stars; at my feet the 
dark river, with a score of changeful lights 
that flash like jewels upon the dusky tide. 
As far as the eye can reach on either hand 
the lights of a great city, whose confines 
cannot be reckoned in the gloom, and whose 
wide sweep an eagle's wing would tire to 
traverse. Over the river, betwixt its murky 
waves and the far-off stars, a bridge, worn 
with the tread of constant feet. Upon this 
rickety highway has fallen the hush of the 
night hours, and only an occasional foot-fall 
tramps by the spot where I loiter. In my 
face there blows a fresh, sweet breath from 
the lake, far out upon the unseen billows of 
which a thousand sails are beating land- 
ward. The big world, in which a few insig- 
nificant atoms called ^'you" and 'T," respect- 
ively, strut so pompously to and fro, is hush- 



^mhi^x flints. 163 

ing away to its brief night's respite from 
toil. And when ''you" and "I" have been 
dead so many years, my dear, that our dust 
shall have passed into forests, that in their 
turn shall have withered and died, this ebb 
and flow of humanity's sullen tide shall still 
beat on. The little game we call life, and 
mourn to lose, shall have been long over for 
generations yet to come, while these nights 
and days of troubled existence course on 
like untired chargers to a distant goal. 

Oh, host without number, who live and 
laugh, and weep and die all about me, I 
stand for a moment here between the river 
and the stars, and am filled with wonder at 
the mystery of your being. What endless 
volumes of life's experience are being laid 
over leaf by leaf to-night under the great 
city's myriad of lamps. There are lights 
amid your many that are lighted in the 
homes of the prosperous and the happy; 
there are waning candles that aid the tardy 
seamstress in her ill-requited toil; there are 
tapers that fitfully burn at the feet of the 
dead; there are lights that flash in the gild- 
ed halls of sin; there is the pale student's 
paler candle, and the miser's, as he greedily 
counts his gold. The young mother bends 



i64 JimXrjev Cltlnts. 

with one above the bed of her ailing first- 
born; the neglected wife weeps by one 
whose flickering beam but reveals the deso- 
lation of her home; the business man lin- 
gers by one to settle the balance for the 
day; the gambler gathers together his ill- 
gotten gains by one, and before aYiother the 
drunkard unsteadily lifts his glass to mark 
the ruddy glow of the poison that has mur- 
dered his manhood. 

There are ten thousand breaking hearts 
over there amid the shadow; there are ten 
thousand breasts in which joy is unfolding 
like a rose; there are ten thousand souls bat- 
tling with temptation, and, ah, me! there 
are ten thousand yielding to the syren voice, 
while still another ten thousand are coming 
out more than conquerers in the strife. 
There are souls jostling one another in the 
mystic corridors of life, ten thousand going 
out into death's forgetfulness, ten thousand 
coming into the heritage of life. 

Not the mystery of the stars above us is 
so great as is the mystery of life that sur- 
rounds us. They circle in an orbit pre-des- 
tined for them from time's beginning. Not 
so with a soul, struck like a spark from in- 
finitude, and soon bewildered with the mys- 



^mhi^Tc (flints. 165 

tery we call living. What wonder we go 
astray? What wonder we are lost? What 
wonder we fall? Standing here in the mid- 
night and looking about me at the far 
gleaming lights, each one of which marks 
some event of individual life — filled with 
the grandeur of the scene, yet also filled 
with sorrow and shame for the revelations 
those lights disclose to all-seeing heaven, 
the old terror of the inevitable sweeps over 
me again, as it used, when a bit of a girl, 
I covered my head in the bed clothes to 
think, that, try as I would, I could never, 
never, never, get away from God! The 
sense of individual powerlessness overcomes 
me. The hopelessness of any belief that 
He who sits above and watches the un- 
equal struggle, should care for the destiny 
of such blind moles as we, so overpowers 
my faith that I fain would dash over the 
side of the rickety old bridge and find in 
death the welcome peace of everlasting 
oblivion. 



»<^« 



I want to tell you, before I go, of some- 
thing I saw take place on State street the 



'i66 ^mhj^ic (^liut&. 

other day. A dirty-faced, ragged little 
urchin was poking about in the ash-barrels 
for spoils. He had a mite of a dog with 
him, quite as unkempt and uncared for as 
himself. But around that dog's neck, if you 
please, was tied a bow of faded red ribbon, 
and his incessant gambols and pranks found 
favor in the sight of his beggar-boy master, 
fining his heart with pride and satisfaction. 
If you can call so uncouth and unreason- 
able an instinct by the sacred name of love, 
then indeed it was plain to see that the boy 
loved the dog, and between the two there 
was the complete understanding of mutual 
affection. Suddenly, while the dog was 
bounding and barking in the exuberance 
of canine joy, and his master's eyes were 
sparkling with reHsh of this one thing in 
life that was his very own — as much to him 
as your greatest treasure is to you — there 
came a rapidly-driven dray down the crowd- 
ed street. A moment later I saw a ragged 
boy, with set face and anguished eye, gather 
in his arms a maimed and dying dog, and 
gently walk away. What had happened? 
Only a worthless street cur trampled to 
death. Only a miserable little rag-picker 
robbed of the sole bit of joy and comfort his 



^mhzx flints. 167 

life ever knew — the one friend that loved 
him — that was all. But there was a look 
in the boy's face that will keep my heart 
aching for many a day to come, and the 
fluttering bit of fancy ribbon about the dead 
dog^s neck brought a mist to my eyes that 
hid the splendor of the morning. 



»^i 



Some day, perhaps, I shall ride in a Chi- 
cago hansom cab. But it will be when I 
am dead. No living power, no sudden 
emergency, could put me inside one of 
those adult perambulators again. The man 
who drives thinks more of a quarter than 
of any chance to prolong his miserable 
fare's life. His sole and only aim seems 
to be to hurl you through to your destina- 
tion and return for another victim. I rode 
in a hansom once, and since then I have 
been unmistakably grayheaded. In the 
first place, the horse developed acute deliri- 
um the moment I was shut behind the cab's 
breast-plate, and pranced down the street 
on three legs, snorting like a war steed. 
This would have been quite enough without 



i68 ^mhzic (Mints. 

a wheel coming off. But there are some 
people born to drain every cup to the dregs. 
All that was conceivable of mental anguish 
and special torment I experienced on that 
ride, and when a policeman picked me up 
from the cable track, where I was finally 
spilled in the path of an advancing grip, I 
registered a vow thenceforth to abjure han- 
soms. 



m9 



Once there was a mouse which lived in 
such constant dread of being devoured by 
a cat that a magician who dwelt near by 
and whose rest was disturbed by reason of 
the lamentations of the mouse, changed it 
into a cat, saying: "There, have done with 
your whimpering, be a cat and fear no 
more.^' No sooner did the mouse become 
a cat, however, than its dread of being wor- 
ried by a dog gave it no rest. "Here, then/^ 
said the good-natured magician, ^'be a dog 
and end your fears." But, alack and alas, 
when the cat became a dog its fears were 
tenfold greater than ever before, lest a tiger 
should drink its blood. So the obliging 
wizard turned it into a tiger, and cried, 



Jimlrjev CHXitxts. 169 

*^Now have done with fear, you can defy 
all!" But the tiger slunk into the jun- 
gle, and was afraid to come forth for dread 
that a huntsman's rifle should lay him low. 
Then the thoroughly disgusted wizard 
turned the coward back into the primal 
mouse, saying, ''You have but the heart of 
a mouse — be a mouse!" 

Every day I meet with people beneath 
the tiger-skin from whose outward seeming 
peep forth the beady eyes of the mouse. 
People who have all they can ask for — a 
competency, good health, an unbroken 
household band, and a faithful heart to in- 
terpose between them and the world's ar- 
rows — and yet are always dreading troubles 
that will probably never overtake them, and 
consume their vitality arid wither their fresh- 
ness by worrying over the inevitable cares 
and the little annoyances that are as insep- 
arable from life as is the bark from the tree 
or the brier from the rose. They are for- 
ever deploring the shadowy side of life, as 
though shadows were anything more than 
the proof of the shining of the sun. They 
have presentiments, and are versed in the 
lore of dreams. If they have children, in- 
stead of enjoying the God-given treasures, 



they are always dreading diseases that shall 
waste and destroy, or accidents that shall 
cripple or kill. Scarlet fever stands over 
against every air-castle they build for their 
darling's future, and plants its blood-red 
banner on the hig'hest turret. They are like 
out-riders, plunging at full gallop in the de- 
sire to cross bridges without waiting for 
the steady march of the hours to bring us 
all to tread their planks. 

How many Christian women there are 
whose black ingratitude to God would 
shame the ingrate heart of earth's most 
noted traitors. They forget present bless- 
ings in worrying about a future they have 
nothing to do with. They are like children 
who sit at a bountiful table, and instead of 
eating spend their time in crying lest they 
should have no dinner to-morrow. 

Now, what is going to help these mouse- 
hearted people? ReHgion? No; not in its 
orthodox formula. Bible texts and faith- 
circulars or set prayers? I think not, with- 
out common sense and a grain of philoso- 
phy. Prayer to God without using com- 
mon sense is an impertinence. God is never 
going to stop the heavenly councils to help 
you buy winter flannels, or decide whether 



^xtxhi^x stints* 171 

you shall go down town or remain at home. 
A healthy child who hangs upon its father 
and does not take a single step without 
asking guidance is either an idiot or a nui- 
sance. Having learned to walk, let him use 
his feet. If you have common sense make 
use of it, and don't expect a special miracle 
to be wrought in your behalf when a little 
reason and a proper use of the faculties God 
gave you will carry you through. 

The law of all living is rigid. Either we 
are masters or we are mastered. If we are 
masters, we are like soldiers drilled to know 
no fear; we go forth to meet destiny with 
the steady eye and the unflinching front of 
disciplined forces. If we are mastered we 
meet destiny as a mob scatters at the first 
rifle shot. Whatever be in store for me, 
from a toothache to a cyclone, if I make up 
my mind to master the dread of it, as far as 
possible, to wait until it comes before I 
quail, and then to meet it like a Roman 
rather than like a hound, no matter what 
the sequence may be, "even unto death," I 
shall have conquered. 

Build for the future, learn from the past, 
but live in the present. Did you ever stop 
to think, you mouse-hearts, the harmony of 



172 Jim:bjeie flints. 

whose lives are all turned into discord by 
forecasting trouble, to whom a few flies in 
the dining room or pencil marks on the 
paint, or the tracing of little fingers on the 
crystal clearness of the window-pane brings 
a load of care and the indulgence of a shrew- 
ish tongue; did you ever stop to think, I 
say, what you will do when some of the 
really great troubles of life shall sweep 
down upon you like a wind out of a north- 
ern sky? Will you remember these mag- 
pie vexations when the feet that made the 
muddy tracks that shattered your dainty 
place shall have turned aside, have climbed 
the heavenward slopes, and walk with God? 
When the hands that traced the finger- 
marks shall have loosened their caressing 
clasp from yours, and leave you only dreams 
of the rose-leaf touch that once thrilled the 
mother-heart within you. Ah, I think, my 
dear, when those troubles do come upon 
you, you will not take note of flies in the 
dining room, nor stop to scold over a dis- 
ordered room. 



There is nothing like absence to sweeten 
association. I have always held that it is 



^mhzx CdXints* 173 

living too constantly in one another's so- 
city that cools love between husbands and 
wives. Occasional separation would pre- 
serve first impressions. Take any good 
thing and make a steady diet of it and the 
appetite fails. Even strawberries would 
pall if every month in the year yielded them. 
It is only because it tarries briefly within 
the circuit of the twelve months that the 
rosy fruit is inimitable. For that reason 
I expect when I get home from this Tophet- 
like trip of mine to swear a new allegiance 
to my friends and cancel the dislike I bear 
my enemies. 



«@« 



One night not so very long ago our 
household was awakened simultaneously 
by a noise like the bursting of a ripe cyclone. 
The dreadful sound fell into the midst of the . 
night's heaviest sleep, and created a panic. 
I bounded out of bed, and with the young 
person hanging on to one arm and the boy 
loudly lamenting from his couch in the 
comer, began a search for matches. The 
darkness was dense; one could have carved 
it like old cheese. There was an ominous 



i;74 ^vxhzx (&Xiut». 

silence in the gloom, as though nature was 
rallying itself for another shock. I groped 
my way to the bureau and fingered every 
inch of its crowded top in vain. There were 
pin-balls and bottles of perfume, hair-pins, 
hat-pins, glove-boxes, toilet water and pow- 
der-puf¥s, but no matches. I prowled away 
in another direction, and tackled the wash- 
stand; tipped over the tooth-brush holder, 
drenched my toes with the contents of the 
toilet pitcher, dabbled my fingers in cold 
cream, toyed with the soap, but as the Irish- 
man tellingly puts it, '^'the divil" a match I 
found. Then I struck the side of the bed 
and fell over into space with a racket that 
renewed the lamentation of the invisible 
boy, and caused the faithful young person 
to release her hold and wander away into 
darkness on her own account. But finally, 
glory be to praise! my fingers encountered 
the slender little pine fragment for which I 
pined. "1 have got one !" I shouted in glee, 
and at the cry the noise of the weeping 
ceased, and hope sprang to life in every 
breast. Eagerly I drew the match along the 
under surface of the shelf; it gave forth no 
spark! Again, and yet again I tried it, 
until disgusted I threw it far from me into 



^xtxhzx flints. 175 

the night and reviled the hideous mockery 
of a burnt match in time of need. Far bet- 
ter to have found nothing than set one's 
hopes of deUverance on such a useless 
thing. The darkness was tenfold harder to 
bear after the cruel disappointment, and 
even the gaining of a light in course of time 
could not dispel the unheroic rage that had 
accompanied the first defeat. 

Are there not, among other types, lots of 
people in the world who serve the same ir- 
ritating and exasperating purposes that 
burnt matches do in the hour of man's ex- 
tremity? We set our hopes upon them; 
we pin our faith to them; we rely upon, 
idealize, glorify them, but when circum- 
stances put them to the test, though we 
draw them ever so smartly along the crisis 
of the hour, they emit no responsive spark. 
They are all wood and no tinder. A damp 
tooth-pick would answer quite as well to 
bring about the illumination of either un- 
derstanding or soul of which we stand in 
need. 

Half the marriages of the present day 
turn out in the hour of test as my burnt 
match did. It is all very well while life 
needs no illumination, while the sun shines. 



176 ^rahzx t^Xints. 

and the matches and the candles are kept 
in their fancy Httle nickel boxes and their 
artistic scones upon the shelf. But when 
the night hangs heavy in the sky and out 
of the fancied dream of peace like a thun- 
derbolt falls the shock of sudden alarm, 
how then? Love strikes the match, and be- 
hold it is burnt at both ends. Worthless in 
the hour of need, and so love wanders away 
in the deepening shadows never to return. 
Look to it when you marry that your stock 
of light producers is kept in a dry and con- 
venient place, ready for instant service. And 
see to it that your protestations are tipped 
with the reliable article, and not already 
burnt and consumed in the fires of an un- 
worthy past. 

The parents who fail their children in the 
crisis of their needs; the mother who is off 
to a party or to the theater while her little 
ones learn to forget her in the company of 
hired nurses or unworthy companionship; 
the father who becomes an utter stranger 
to his growing family in order that he may 
make money or court political preference; 
the mother who thinks more of fashion and 
of social success than of the delicate long- 
ings and aspirations of her maiden daugh- 



^mhi^Tc stints. 177 

ter's heart; the father who is never on hand 
to mingle in the children's joys and griefs; 
the mother who neglects her duty and casts 
obloquy upon the sacred name of mother, 
are nothing better in God^s sight than 
burnt matches in the world's workshop. 
Away with such superfluities! Their room 
is better than their permitted cumbering of 
time. I say it in all solemnity, but for my 
part I would rather die right now while 
there is a little of the illuminating power 
left in heart and brain, even if the crucial 
test sometimes charges the air with the 
evanescent fumes of sulphur, than live to 
be a burnt out match, kept in a box along 
with other used-up forces; of no good to 
either God or man, and only capable now 
and then of raising a whirlwind of rage in 
some human creature's breast, who, mistak- 
ing me for what I never more can be, has 
set his hopes of present or eternal welfare 
and deliverance upon the illumination it is 
no longer in my power to give. Amen! 

I love to spend money. Indeed, it has a 
way of burning itself through my pocket 



178 ^mhtx Mints, 

like a sun-glass through tissue; but I do 
like to gain my money^s equivalent. Take 
a trip in a stuffy sleeper, with the ther- 
mometer at 98 and a black duke of a porter 
to look down upon you, let the windows 
all day look out upon the sand dunes of the 
desert; let the flies infest the air with their 
awful presence, and allow dust to sift into 
every one of the million pores of your tor- 
tured body, and if you call that an equiva- 
lent for a hard-earned handful of dollars 
you would call a morning's engagement 
with a dentist a holiday and cramps a picnic. 



a®^ 



Some day I am going to build me a 
home. It may not be here; I may have 
gone 'Wer the hills" and found the happy 
valley before I start to dig its foundation; 
but I shall surely build it. It shall stand 
upon a bluff and overlook the sea; there 
shall be a grove of silver birches under its 
windows, and all day long the soft wind, 
like a bee, shall drone and hum within its 
flickering shadows. The road that leads to 
it shall wind through woodland ways, and 



^mhzx CHXitxts. 179 

nobody who comes on any but a friendly 
errand shall find a clue to the labyrinth. 
An ^olian harp shall be strung within the 
northward facing window, so that when the 
storms sweep down upon that part of the 
world where stands my happy home they 
shall advance to the beat of music. In 
the garden shall grow the sweet, old-fash- 
ioned flowers of long ago; the hollyhock 
with its silken leaves and its pollen finer 
than the dust of gold shall fringe the sunny 
borders; the larkspur and the four-o'clock 
shall run riot in the untrimmed garden beds ; 
marigold, like dusky stars, shall light the 
way for troops of curtesying columbine and 
fragrant pinks to follow. Annunciation 
lilies shall be ever at their prayers like vestal 
nuns in dim cloisters of that lovely garden, 
and the rose shall preempt her claim to 
every nook within its magic circle. There 
the tawny tiger lily and the splendid nastur- 
tium shall hold their court, and the pansy 
from a thousand coverts shall lift its bright 
face to greet the day. ^'Bachelor's but- 
tons" and "widow's tears" and "bleeding 
hearts" shall find a place, while "Sweet 
Williams" and "Bouncing Bettys" shall 
never be turned away. There shall be so 



i8o ^mhtx ^Xiuis. 

many flowers blooming, and so many but- 
terflies glancing^ and so many birds singing 
in that garden of delight that the perfume 
and the melody shall make all the country 
side for miles and miles about a veritable 
land of enchantment for those who journey 
by. There shall be no such thing as a 
lawn-mower known within the precincts of 
my garden; there shall be no clipj)ed shrubs, 
no trimmed walks, no stiff beds. No foun- 
tain shall be forced to play therein, and no 
statue or device of any kind to suggest the 
world of art shall desecrate nature's do- 
main. The steps that lead up to my home 
shall be low and broad and the entrance 
door shall be of unpolished cedar, with a 
massive brass knocker to herald the ap- 
proach of welcome guests. There shall be 
but one room- on the ground floor, and that 
shall be of feudal dimension and cheer. 
Beautiful screens of quaint design shall 
serve to partition off this great room as my 
fancy may desire, but at will they shall all 
be laid aside and the room become a royal 
hospitality hall. Four immense fireplaces 
shall glorify it, and the light shall enter from 
every side, and also from the roof, which 
shall be so adjusted as to allow the air of 



^tnbtic (founts. i8i 

heaven to enter at will. There shall be no 
paint or varnish about my house — natural 
woodsjwell oiled to preserve and enhance the 
native grain, shall be its only decoration. 
The kitchen shall be completely detached 
from the main building. The sleeping 
rooms shall open from an upper corridor 
reached by a winding stairway. The bath- 
room shall be of Pompeiian marble, made 
to represent cool grottoes under the sea. 
There shall be no modern improvements 
such as drains or sewer connections, fur- 
naces nor electric bells and lights under- 
neath its roof. Inscriptions of the choicest 
shall be engraved upon the walls and 
mosaiced within the floors. Over the bed- 
room doors shall be painted sprays of lan- 
guid poppies and purple heartsease for 
pleasant thoughts. There shall be no two 
articles of furniture alike in all the house, 
no horrible suits, no stufify upholstery, no 
dusty carpets. The rugs shall be of tapestry 
and all the hangings of wrought silk. Music 
shall be the spirit of the home, and sun- 
shine, sweet air and hygiene its handmaids. 
Within it every tired woman and over- 
worked child and discouraged bread-winner 
in the land shall find a welcome, and there 



i82 ^rahzx (founts, 

shall be no such thing as an alarm clock 
or a rising bell or the distant whistle of an 
approaching train, heard forever. If you 
come to visit me, my tired friend, you shall 
instantly be presented with a velvet dressing 
gown and a pair of swan-down slippers, and 
you shall have leave to lie down on a lounge 
constructed of feathers and springs, where 
you may read novels and eat chocolate bon- 
bons for months at a time. You and I 
shall fathom at last the meaning of the word 
**rest," so long unknown in our vocabulary. 
We shall be as lazy as the lizard that basks 
in the shade of a Mexican cactus, as sleepy 
as a white owl, and as free from care as a 
lotus flower on the Nile. I cannot exactly 
say when the invitations will be out for this 
reunion of rest, this carnival of the lazy, 
but be assured, my dear, you shall be one 
of the remembered ones when I come into 
the heritage of my dreams. 

N. B. — I omitted to mention that no 
^'canned goods" will be served in my ideal 
home. 



That household can never be called mo- 
notonous that boasts the possession of nine 



^mhi^x ClXints. 183 

cats. Exactly that number of gentle felines 
sit about my humble threshold and make 
the home rhythmical with cry of battle and 
vice versa. Each one is a fighter from 
*'away back." There is Robert Elsmere, 
who from his name might be expected to 
suffer the pangs of a perturbed spirit. He 
bears the scars of many onslaughts, yet al- 
lows no opportunity to escape him to get 
in a left-hander at his world in general. If 
he can hurl defiance at nothing else he has 
been known to attack the cow and spit and 
storm at that peaceful bovine like a bee 
storming a buttress. There is the "African 
Farm," a coal-black creature with eyes like 
emeralds set in jet. She spends most of her 
time shrieking for milk, which she will ac- 
cept only well warmed and unskimmed. 
There is Swipes, after whom the whole fam- 
ily chase from morn to night, seeking to 
deter him from his proclivity for killing 
robins. I have vowed a vow that the very 
next red-breast Swipes destroys I buy a 
dime's worth of chloroform and away goes 
his depraved spirit to the land of the here- 
after. There is Imbecile^, who as his 
name would indicate is hardly responsible 
for his ravages upon the family larder. He 



i84 ^mhi^t minU. 

does nothing but eat and blink. The day 
will shortly come when I shall throw a 
stove-Hd at him and abruptly close his ca- 
reer. There is Jenness Miller, so called 
from an appearance about the legs as 
though swathed in a divided skirt; and 
Thomas Z. Pratt, named at random and fill- 
ing his place as patriarch of the flock with a 
dignity a city father might emulate. I am 
a hard-working woman, put to my wit's end 
often as to how to make both ends of a 
slender income meet, and for that reasja I 
am filled with joy as my family of depend- 
ent cats increase upon my hands. I am too 
much of a humanitarian, both in theory and 
in practice, to allow the goblin brood to 
starve, and yet to feed them properly so that 
they will not forage among the robins taxes 
the resources of a dauntless spirit. I can 
get nobody to kill them. I have not the 
nerve myself to do so, consequently I see 
before me an ever-darkening future. Won't 
somebody advise me what to do? More 
cats mean a pauperis grave for Amber. 



^9^t 



Jimibrjev a^Xinis. 185 

There was a young woman of Norway, 
Who casually sat in her doorway, 

When the door jammed her flat 

She cried, "What of that?" 
This indifferent young woman of Norway. 

Alas, for a tithe of thy philosophy, O 
brave Norwegian damsel! Would that the 
sublime supremacy of mind over matter 
that has placed thee on record as the first 
of mental scientists might visit a few of us ! 
What to thee the horror of accumulated 
sewing, of an empty purse and an emptier 
coal bin! What to thee the revilings of 
thy Norwegian lord when bread chanced 
to be sour and cofifee aqueous? What to 
thee the incoming and outgoing caravan of 
kitchen help? When the infant Norwe- 
gians tear their knickerbockers, or the wee 
one of all swallows copper cents, or broken 
glass, or any other deadly compound; when 
the chimney smokes, or the roof leaks, or 
the chariot of the unannounced guest draws 
up to thy gates, with not even a ham bone 
in the larder for cheer, never does thy sub- 
lime unconcern forsake thee, thou daughter 
of a frost-blooded tribe. I salute thee, 
across the sea, and across the year, and 



1 86 ^mhzic (Mints. 

drink a beaker of beer to the perpetuation 
of thy indifference in a progeny that shall 
never perish! 



I wonder if there is one of all who read 
and feel an interest in these columns who 
can rise up and say, *'Lo! I am one whom 
the small annoyances of life never fret." 

Is there one of the number who has never 
seen the time when the little foxes have not 
bitten the bloom away from the vines and 
left them bare? It is very well to summon 
a certain amount of philosophy to the res- 
cue, and say that a life is unacquainted with 
true sorrow that knows nothingharsher than 
the worriment of domestic care^ but I tell 
you right now, there's many a woman has 
gone down to her death with a prospect of 
a martyr's crown from the endurance of 
just these things! Not all the martyrs have 
perished amid blazing fagots! 

The big trials of life generally find us 
prepared, and a special strength is vouch- 
safed us to meet them, but for the souls that 
are beset behind and before with the tor- 



^mhzx (flints. 187 

ments of daily recurring care, who shall 
tell the number of their discouragements? 

Put me in a three-acre lot and bid me run 
for my life to escape from a roaring bull, 
and the chances are that your humble serv- 
ant will place a five-barred fence between 
her and the horns of her pursuer in pretty 
quick time, but bid me run from a swarm 
of hornets and I fall discouraged by the 
way. 



There is something heroic in meeting 
great sorrows bravely. We sit at the feet 
of dark-browed trouble and are sweetened 
and strengthened by the lesson she reads 
us. Our wayward wills are disciplined, our 
ideals made luminous, and our ardor chas- 
tened. So that for what remains of life 
we are truer comrades and better Christians, 
but will the grace that is granted for special 
needs hold fast in the bewilderments of per- 
plexed daily living? Will the aid that comes 
to guide us through deep waters conde- 



i88 ^mh^ic mints. 

scend to tarry with us when only shoe-deep 
in brawHng streams? 

I think it will. The woman who stands 
rebellious before the wash tub, or aghast 
before the pile of dishes that three times a 
day, 365 days, for forty years, confront her, 
may gain consolation from the same source 
that supplies her when the baby dies, or 
hope dips into the sea like a sunken sun. 
I wish I could convince every tired and dis- 
couraged woman of this belief. It may 
seem to you that no human heart can know 
all you have to bear, that your burdens are 
heavier than ever yet were borne on human 
shoulders, and that there is no end to the 
drudgery, monotony, and pain of your ex- 
istence. The husband who promised to 
bear your burdens is quite regardless of 
them now; your children have grown away 
from your yearning heart, and you have no 
time to nourish new friendships. You 
stand alone, your destiny marked out before 
you like a long and dusty road leading to 
the grave. 

H< ^ ^ H« ^ 

Not so, dear heart! There is one wait- 
ing to give you comfort. There is one 



^mhzx flints* 189 

waiting to lead you home. It is possible 
for Him to lighten your load and hang 
clusters on the bitter vine. Nobody else 
can. Nobody else would. Shall aught 
avail, then, to destroy the life that can 
claim so sympathizing a friend, so tender 
and all-comprehending a lover? 

If our love were but more simple, 
We should take Him at His word, 

And our lives would be all sunshine 
In the sweetness of our Lord! 

If I am to kill a chicken (a thing I 
wouldn't do, my dear, for a thousand 
pounds !) I do not proceed to do the deed by 
cruel and protracted methods. I should be 
arrested by the Humane Society if I went 
to work to put poison in the doomed fowPs 
daily rations, or nip it slyly now and then 
with a redhot hatpin. 

The cat that was killed by care suffered 
far more than the cat that perished by a 
quick bullet. 

When a horse is disabled and unfit for 
service, the merciful man knocks it in the 



iQo ^vahi^x (flints. 

head with a well-aimed blow, and that's the 
last of it. But we have different ways of 
killing love, and trust, and kindly feeling in 
one another's hearts. We make use, all too 
often, of the North American Indian's orig- 
inal method of protracted torture. And love, 
and trust, and kindly feeling, although they 
die hard, and are a long time dying, under 
the process, are as certainly doomed as the 
chicken, the cat, and the disabled horse are 
by the blow of the hatchet, the sting of 
the bullet, or the crash of the club. There 
is many a home to-day where love is slowly 
dying under the torture inflicted by a sar- 
castic tongue, or where it already lies dead 
under the peculiar processes of this coward- 
ly mode of torment. The drunkard's wife is 
not more to be pitied than the wife of the 
cold-blooded husband whose tongue holds 
the venom of a dozen serpents. I would 
rather be mated to a man who should 
throw a chair at me now and then than to 
such a husband as we see occasionally, who 
murders his wife's peace and happiness 
slowly yet surely from day to day with 
cruel and biting words of suspicion and 
contempt. I might dodge the chair, but I 
couldn't dodge the word, and, besides. 



bruises inflicted on the body heal under the 
appHcation of liniment and arnica, but 
there has no salve been found yet to cure 
the hurt of a sarcastic tongue. There are 
many unhappy homes in the world, and 
many broken hearts, and there is a great 
cry raised against the causes therefor. A 
crusade is even being raised against the 
giant forces that combine to break up the 
harmony of domestic concord, yet the lesser 
influences for evil are ignored and forgot- 
ten. It is as though we armed ourselves 
to go out and shoot elephants in a country 
where rabbits were devastating the crops, 
or fitted out a fleet to catch whales in a 
fresh-water pond full of eels and catfish. 
Intemperance, and unfaithfulness, and all 
the greater causes of sorrow in the world's 
homes have always plenty of armed and 
steadfast opposers and foes, but the little 
hidden foxes that spoil the vines run to and 
fro without molestation. 

It takes as much heroism often to sit 
down and endure for a half-hour the electric 
buzz-saw of a modern dentist as it takes to 
march to battle behind a drum and a flag; 
but whoever wrote a poem to the hero or 
heroine of the dentist's chair? It takes 



1^2 ^mhj^x ^Xxuis. 

more Christian grace to live in the 
same house with a sarcastic tongue than to 
wear a hair-cloth shirt and do ante-sunrise 
penance, and yet who stops to say a word 
of comfort to the saint inured to domestic 
torment, or learn a lesson from her sublime 
patience and enduring courage? It is not 
going to be those who march up by and by 
and show saber cuts on the body who will 
be called heroes, but those who display 
scars made in the heart that were silently 
endured, who will wear the laurel and the 
bay. We all pride ourselves on the eti- 
quette that teaches us to be gentlemen and 
ladies in the drawing-room or in public 
places, but when some of us have learned 
the etiquette that teaches us to be more 
gentlemanly and ladylike as fathers and 
mothers, sisters and brothers, parents and 
children, we shall have learned a new code. 
The man is a coward who is civil only where 
he dare not be otherwise, but becomes a 
bully behind the closed doors of his home. 
What we need is less mannerism for show, 
and more courtesy at home. You would 
never dare to speak to a lady in society, sir, 
as you speak to your wife and daughter, 
and I say you are the worst sort of a cad 



^mhtx tMiuts. 193 

when you take a tone with the defenseless 
ones at home you would not dare assume 
to a stranger. 

All politeness that is put on merely for 
show is like the stain the cabinetmaker puts 
on a pine board; politeness that amounts to 
anything is in the grain of the wood, not an 
external application. We make a terrible 
fuss when our growing children put a din- 
ner knife to their lips, yet say nothing when 
they pester and harass one another with 
mean and sarcastic speeches until good na- 
ture flies out the window and evil temper 
stalks in at the door. 

I will take my chance, any day, to live 
with the person who comimits the solecism 
of putting his knife in his mouth rather 
than with the person who deals in anger- 
provoking speech and innuendo. 

You take it greatly to heart when the 
slugs get into the roses, and your June gar- 
dens are despoiled of their sweetness and 
beauty. And yet there is something worse 
that gets into the home, that garden of de- 
light, when unkind and sarcastic speech 
creeps in with its chilling blight. I have 
in my mind's eye as I write a family of 
growing sons and daughters more desolate 

13 



194 |i.mtrjev CUtitxts. 

than any garden devoured by slugs or with- 
ered by devastating blight. The father sits 
over against everything that is spontaneous 
and ardent and earnest with his cold and 
clammy ridicule; the older boys emulate 
their father, and the girls are ashamed to 
be fresh and natural and enthusiastic, as 
they were meant to be, for fear of evoking 
laughter and contempt. In the midst sits 
the mother, a dear Httle frightened morsel 
of a woman, full of poetic fancies and im- 
mortal enthusiasms stifled and confined like 
so many infant Moseses in bullrush baskets, 
with Herod stalking up and down the bank. 
If you must murder love then in the heart 
and home, wherein you ought to glorify and 
crown it, I pray you go out and get drunk, 
or rob a bank, or skip to Canada with a de- 
faulter's grip-sack; anything, so that the 
deed is done quickly and poor innocent love 
be not a long time dying, like a victim on 
the rack. 

I wish joy lasted as flies do. I wish that 
after the summer, with its beautiful, balmy 
weather, was ended, and the long, chill 



^mhtx ^XinU, 195 

evenings should close in about life's little 
day, we might all of us sit down in the 
warmth of pleasant memories and be buzzed 
at by lively delights and nipped by sportive 
, fancies, as I am buzzed at and nipped to- 
night by these abominable flies. There is 
nothing in animate nature I so utterly de- 
test as I do a familiar, inquisitive, noisy fly, 
and yet, how the riotous insect outlasts 
every other feature of the season. Roses 
fade early, flowers of all sorts vanish with 
the first blight of frost, birds fly away, the 
orioles and the bluebirds, the cardinals and 
the bobolinks, go trooping away southward 
in long, wavering lines of animate shadow 
before a flake has fallen or an icicle formed; 
but the fly remains with us to partake of 
Thanksgiving dinner. Each day beholds 
its lively resurrection from the chill of the 
preceding night. They survive as only sin 
and sorrow survive, in a world that would 
be all the fairer and more alluring for their 
absence. Somebody told me the other day 
to buy a certain powder and waft it at night 
about the rooms especially infested by 
flies, then close the doors and windows, hie 
to bed, and the morning shall find the home 
flyless. I bought the powder, wafted it, 



1^6 ^mhty: CiXiwtSe 

went to bed. Awoke in the night dreaming 
that an elephant had casually sat down on 
my left lung, and that my right lung and 
other vitals had ossified. Thought I was 
asphyxiated by coal gas, but remembering 
that we burned wood, came to the conclu- 
sion that I had acute pneumonia. Roused 
the family and requested a poultice, but 
found every other member of the family 
prostrated. Suffered acutely until dawn, 
when we found the whole place shoe-deep 
with a yellow powder like the pollen of a 
tiger-lily, which reminded us of the experi- 
ment of the night before. Not a vivacious 
fly was injured, but the family struggled 
bravely back from death's doors and re- 
solved to try no more experiments. 

I wish I knew why people have to eat. 
Why couldn't we keep up steam by some 
other process than by munching bits of food 
like oxen, sheep and donkeys grazing in a 
pasture? There is nobody who looks the 
least bit interesting when masticating, or 
even in the premonitory stages of making a 



^mhzx (founts. 197 

selection. A man may be ever so kingly, 
so heroic or so grand, or a woman ever so 
beautiful, so charming or so lovable, but 
the moment either begins to eat, down they 
go to the level of the brute. I don't see 
why nature didn't ordain that we should 
feed the marvelous engine that keeps the 
blood rushing through the veins by some 
more economical and delicate process. A 
poor man has to work so awfuhy hard and 
a poor woman has to plan and putter so 
constantly just to keep enough money in the 
purse to maintain this humiliating necessity 
of feeding. Among other things that the 
evolution of the years shall bring to man- 
kind shall be a process by which nutriment 
shall be condensed so that a whole meal 
shall lie in the compass of a pellet, and an 
entire beef be compressed into a lozenge. 
When our future great, great grandchildren 
feel the pangs of unsatiated appetite they 
will only have to take a sly little nibble be- 
hind their delicate handkerchiefs of a loz- 
enge or a drop that shall contain the con- 
densed nutriment of a full meal. No more 
idiotic chewing and mouthing, no greedy 
dabs at special tidbits, no consequent soil- 
ing of fingers and lips or spoiling of pretty 



198 ^mhtx mints. 

gowns by carelessly spilled sau-ces and 
gravies. Won't it be jolly? And don't you 
wish you had been born a century later to 
have enjoyed it all? 

I wish I knew why the woman has not 
yet been born who knows how to carry an 
umbrella. The most of them wield it like 
a battle-axe, or trail it like the banner in a 
lost cause, or carry it as a raw recruit carries 
a bayonet. I never get safely home after 
a rainstorm that I don't call the family to- 
gether and sing a hymn of praise that I 
have been spared to meet them once more. 
I tell you there are pleasanter ways of dy- 
ing than being pierced to the brain, or de- 
prived of an eye, or impaled by a sharp 
umbrella stick. And if I must be bayoneted 
I would rather meet my fate on a battle- 
field than on a street-crossing, or on a windy 
corner where men congregate to gibe 
at my misery. I started out in life with 
many friends, but one by one a coldness has 
sprung up between us by reason of walking 
together in the rain, until the original num- 



^mhzic CHIitxts. 199 

ber is sadly depleted. We have started to 
walk under the same umbrella, and conver- 
sations of the following nature have only 
stopped this side of blows: 

''Can't you carry that umbrella a little 
steadier?" 

*'Look out! You are knocking my hat 
over my eyes." 

"Great heavens! Do you want to put 
out my eyes?" 

"Really, I must request you to hold that 
thing further on your own side; you have 
pulled half the hair off my scalp already." 

"You are too idiotic to walk straight, 
much less to carry an umbrella. I think I 
will get along better alone." 

And so we have parted, to meet no more 
as we have met in happier days. 

-»@©' 

I wish I knew why the most prayerful and 
pious parents have such bad children as a 
rule, and vice versa. I had a cousin, three 
removed, who went as a missionary to 
India. She returned after many years to 
place two fatherless babes in school. Two 



200 Jimlrjev ((^Xinis. 

such diabolical imps never flitted across the 
vision of my mortal dream. They bit and 
glowered like little demons, and those of us 
who belonged to the same blood, but were 
not missionaries, used to brood over our 
own little ones when those two boys were 
around, as a hen broods over her flock 
when the hawk is in the sky. I have a 
neighbor who goes to prayer-meeting two 
evenings in the week, and belongs to the 
Village Aid, and the Foreign Mission and 
the King's Daughters, and her children will 
steal potatoes out of the grocer's basket 
when they can't get apples. 1 wonder if 
some day these freaks of heredity shall all 
be accounted for and we shall know just 
why the Lord gave pickles when we ex- 
pected plums, and caused the wild juniper 
tree to bring forth fruit, and the sheltered 
strawberry plant to yield nothing but leaves. 



I wonder if there is a spot left in all the 
world where one could be alone and not be 
bothered by folks. Take the wings of the 
air and fly away to the most distant heart of 
the loveliest hill and ten to one the first 



^mhzx CHXiwts. 201 

thing your foot treads upon will be a pea- 
nut-shell, a sign positive that some free-born 
citizen has been there before you. Go to 
the sea and cast yourself prone upon its sil- 
ver sands; watch the tumbling surf and im- 
agine that there is nothing left in all the 
world but you and the gray sea-gull that 
poises like a winged thought between the 
billows and the blue air, but the sudden 
cackle of a shallow wit's laugh, or the fuss 
and flurry of some feather-head passing by, 
will dispel your dream of solitude before it 
is fully begun. I ran away from town the 
other day in search of a place to interview 
my own self and find out how the times 
were faring with that part of me destined, 
I humbly hope, to outlast the needs of bread 
and butter, dress fabrics and shoe leather. 
But do you suppose I found it? We 
stopped for a half-day at Niagara, and I 
clambered away down the river bank and 
found a place so sheltered and so beautiful 
that I almost hoped the realization of my 
wildest dream had found fulfillment. Far 
above my head the world seemed full of 
falling water and emerald sheen and rain- 
bow-tinted sheets of spray, where the great 
fall poised upon its rocky verge. At my 



202 Jiml^jeic CUttnts. 

feet in wild commotion and angry unrest 
the breakers rushed and bounded between 
the narrow confines of the pass. Ever since 
the stars swung into place to light a newly- 
created earth upon its way; before a human 
voice had waked the echoes of the primal 
morning, or a human foot trod the verdure 
of the fresh young world, these furious tor- 
rents have kept up their ceaseless wage of 
war. The ocean has its times of rest and 
calm, when a shallop made of rose leaves 
might float secure upon its breathless tides, 
but Niagara's torment is never done. It is 
always lashed and torn in eternal conflict, 
and still will be when you and I, with our 
headaches and our fears, have been blown 
about within the infinite spaces of the stars 
ten thousand years. Just as I was indulg- 
ing in these thoughts and feeling through- 
out each fiber of my happy soul that it was 
well to be alone with nature at her grandest 
and her best, I heard voices on the ledge 
six feet or less from where I sat. "Have 
you got any gum?" "^Not a bit." ^'Oh, 
pshaw; I'm just dying for some." As a 
mower scatters clover heads, or as a stiff 
breeze carries away dandelion disks, so flew 
to the windward my happy fancies of soli- 



^rtxhzx flints. 203 

tude as I gathered myself together and rode 
up the incline, priced the bead baskets and 
reviled the moccasin to my heart's content 
along with the gum-chewing crowd. 

There is not much enjoyment to be got- 
ten out of a trip on an elevated train 
through the heart of New York, but there is 
a wonderful chance to study life in its vary- 
ing phases. Starting from the Battery and 
traveling ten miles north as the bird flies, 
one gets glimpses of people and things un- 
dreamed of by the tourist afoot. In a shabby 
chamber behold a tired sewing-girl making 
shirts. As the train rumbles by she does 
not even lift the lashes from her pale cheek 
to watch its progress. Her stint must be 
accomplished or the slender pittance upon 
which she depends to hold at bay the two 
wolves of want and dishonor is no longer 
hers. In another room a little child lies 
sick upon a comfortless cot. The long 
bright hair is tossed aside upon a pillow 
that seems none too clean, and the little 
hands are partly folded underneath a cheek 
sadly wan and pale. A moment we watch 



204 Jimtrjev (flints. 

the flying picture and then it changes to an 
upper room in a lodging house, full of men 
playing cards and drinking beer. Their 
ribald songs float in at the window as we 
roll by. The next scene that unfolds with 
kaleidoscopic effect is a costumer's room 
hung with masks and gay dresses. A pretty 
girl is selecting a domino, and stops to flirt 
with the conductor as we flash by. An- 
other room discovered what is apparently a 
thief at work. He seems to be forcing the 
lock of a trunk, and is so intent he does not 
notice our passing. In a window of a tene- 
ment that overlooks a dingy street a woman 
is leaning out upon her folded arms, and as 
we pass we hear her curse a little child that 
is pulling at her dress. Two lovers are 
whispering together in a doorway, while an 
irate old woman bears down upon them 
from the hallway bent on mischief. Why 
can^t old folks stay out of scenes like this? 
There is no harm in a stolen word or two 
when hearts are callow and hope is young. 
A hideous old Jew is crouching over a dirty 
bundle in a dimly-lighted room. We won- 
der if he is another Fagin, and almost think 
he is when we see a couple of boys shrink- 
ing against the further wall. A pretty 



^mhi^x ^titxtjs, 205 

young woman is crooning her baby to sleep 
in another chamber, and no princess was 
ever cradled in more loving arms. A cat 
is stealing meat from off a scanty table 
while the good housewife's back is turned, 
a bird is hopping in a cage that hangs in an 
open window, a rose is blooming in a pot 
that stands upon a neat little shelf, above 
which a curly-headed boy is poising danger- 
ously near the window ledge. Somebody 
is quarreling in a room as we glide on into 
the shadow. Somebody is playing on an 
old cracked piano in another, and our ears 
catch the notes of ^'Annie Rooney" trolled 
forth by an excellent tenor. Our ride is 
ended and over long before the memory of 
all that we have seen has left the mazes of 
our brain. God pity us all as we go our 
various ways in the world, for be we rich or 
poor, dwell we in tenement or mansion, be 
the heart within our bosom fresh and gay . 
or sordid and withered and old, we have 
much need of His constant care and His 
patient love. 

Lamb wrote once most quaintly about 
the "Decay of Begging." I follow him 



2o6 ^tahzx (flints, 

later and most unworthily, but neverthe- 
less most earnestly, with a brief word on the 
decay of courtesy. We are a bright gen- 
eration and a progressive people. We ac- 
cumulate and build up and increase, and 
yet we have deteriorated wondrously in 
good manners. It has come to be that if 
a man is a thorough gentleman as to speech 
and linen and conduct he is a "dude," and 
if a woman stands aside to do a service in 
a crowded street, such as to remove a 
banana-skin, or lend her arm to a crippled 
wayfarer, she is a "crank." We push, and 
hustle, and elbow our way along towards 
success, mindful only of number one, and 
may the old boy take the hindmost. It is 
an age of such everlasting and almighty 
equality that the lower classes in seeking to 
impress you with the fact that they are '^as 
good as you are," forget how to serve and 
remember only to be insolent. In business 
the gruffer, and grumpier, and more 
brusque a man can be the more adaptation 
he shows for his position. Magnates of 
every kind are autocrats, and in many in- 
stances it were far safer to pull a lion's tail 
than seek to be on terms of even flesh and 
blood equality with an editor, a hotel clerk 



^mhj^x tf^liuU. 207 

or the young man at the theater ticket-win- 
dow. For my part, I am dying to see the 
world swing back, if need be, in its orbit, 
and give us old-fashioned politeness to- 
wards all, reverence for the aged and cour- 
tesy and kind feeling from all to all. 

I am told that the gods fell into a dispute 
one day as to which of the four seasons was 
the favorite of mankind. Seeing no other 
way to bring peace from out the babble of 
tongues, Jove commanded that each season 
produce a masterpiece and present the same 
to a quorum of the gods. 

First, Spring evolved a day that shim- 
mered like an opal through rosy mists and 
low-lying clouds, tinted like the plumage of 
a gray dove. And she bordered it with pale 
violets that deepened as they grew, until 
they showed the purple of King Solomon's 
robes. And she scattered it all over with 
touches of green, like up-springing grass by 
loosened water courses, and sprays of blos- 
soms, like snow when the sunshine finds 
it. And she gave it the voice of a wood- 
thrush in the twilight and drew over it a 



2o8 ^mhj^Tc CHXints, 

veil of silver rain, shot through and through 
with broken rainbows and sunflashes. 

Then Summer brought a day of golden 
calm^ about whose brow were languid pop- 
pies and blue cornflowers steeped in sun- 
shine. And a veil like the haze on far hills 
enveloped it, and its voice was the noon- 
day note of the cushat dove, hid deep in 
fields of snowy buckwheat. And the hum 
of its drowsy bees was like the lullaby song 
that mothers sing to their sleepy children, 
while above it, like a butterfly that poises 
above a yellow rose, was the infinite peace 
of a cloudless heaven. 

Next, Autumn poured a crystal goblet 
high with wine and placed it in the hands of 
a day that laughed like a beautiful woman 
and wore amethysts and topaz and great 
shining rubies at its throat. And the breath 
of this day made all the earth glad, so that it 
drank the wine of grapes and summoned the 
winds of heaven to smite their harps for joy. 
And its voice was like the voice of silver 
bugles when brave men march to war or the 



^mhtx CHIiuts. 209 

mellow notes of trumpets when conquerors 
return unto their homes. 



Lastly, Winter laid at the feet of the 
gods a fair, dead day, whose loveliness was 
like the loveliness of a bride whom death 
hath taken. Its shroud was like the inner 
heart of milk weed when rosy-fingered chil- 
dren first unfold it, and about its brows were 
wrapped frost lace finer than cobwebs in the 
light of a wan moon. A single diamond 
blazed upon its breast, and in its pale and 
quiet hands was loosely wreathed a strand 
of priceless pearls. 



And the gods, being much together, were 
bewildered with the masterpieces of each 
season^s handiwork, and could make no 
choice. So they ordered that, while time 
endured, these perfect tests of seasonable 
weather should be perpetuated for the bene- 
fit of the sons and daughters of earth, and 
that somewhere within the round of the 
year should fall four absolutely perfect days. 
Who shall say that the past month did not 
bring in autumn's masterpiece somewhere 



210 ^mhj^x (flints. 

within the last quarter of its calendared 
days? 

The other evening I was riding home on 
the suburban train. Near me sat a fat 
youth with less intelligence in his make-up 
than a biscuit has spice. He was known 
to me personally as shady both in morals 
and intellect. And what do you think the 
boy was reading? — 'True and I !" No less 
than that, the sweetest, tenderest creation 
ever penned by a dreamer's fancy. Think- 
ing that it would be of interest to find out 
how such a pearl came to be cast in the way 
of a rover such as he, I drew near and asked 
the question: 

"What are you reading?" 

*'Oh, a novel I picked up; I liked the 
title, but I guess it's pretty slow.'^ 

'^Do you think you ought to read erotic 
literature at your age?" I asked him. 

After I had explained to him what 
'^erotic" meant he answered, 'T guess it 
won't hurt me, I've read pretty wild books 
in my time. If I find this is too-too, I'll 
not leave it around where the wo>men folks 
will find it!" 



^mhtx CdXiuts. 211 

I didn't stop laughing all the way home, 
but after all it made me mad. It all comes 
of this hodge-podge in literary mention. 
If you serve everything with the same 
sauce, who is to know fish from fowl? If 
you do not deal with intelligent clerks what 
is to help the classification of 'True and I" 
with erotic slush, and who is to prevent the 
jumible? Perhaps you think a clean book 
might work reform in the reader who had 
fallen upon it through error, but if so you 
are mistaken. A rat can never be taught 
to eat cheese with a fork, nor can a de- 
praved taste be taught the usages of refine- 
ment. No harm was done by the fooFs 
reading the book of airy dreams; his pos- 
sessing it was simply a desecration, as it 
would be to give a monkey the image of the 
Madonna to play with. The helter-skelter 
of book distribution would not occur were 
the distinction more reliable. 

And what is true of books is true of peo- 
ple. We all pose in conglomerate. There 
are no individual distinctions, unless it be 
good clothes. If the Magdalene wears rags 
we avoid her; if she wears seal-skin and 
diamonds we accept her invitation to lunch. 

"She is a splendid woman," somebody 



212 ^mhj^x WiinU. 

says of the person who lives in the next 
flat. Why is she splendid? How does 
the sumptuous term fit? Is she brainy? 
Is she brave? Is she big-hearted? Is she 
tender both in thought and manner? Is 
she brilliant? Is she a champion of losing 
causes and diffident people? Is she wide 
in her outlooks and generous with her 
money? Not at all. Then why does she 
pass with the testimonial card of "splendid" 
tacked to her mantle? Merely because 
she moves in the best society, gives elegant 
dinners, wears a winning surface smile, 
possesses tactful manners and can out-dress 
the Queen of Sheba? That makes her 
splendid^ does it? And we apply the same 
term to the heroism of the noble Six Hun- 
dred, to the devotion of Jeanne d'Arc to 
principle, to the courage of a soldier in bat- 
tle, and to the sacrifice on Calvary. Out 
on your false labels then, either on fruit or 
people! 

Another friend is gone. Not to heaven, 
perhaps, but out into the white mist of si- 
lence that envelops the world. Noiselessly 
as bubbles burst or sunshine leaves the 



^mhtx CHXints. 213 

hills they are passing away, these tried and 
trusted friends of earth, and day is not more 
sure to fade into night nor stars to pale be- 
fore the flush of dawn than is the certainty 
of their departure from our firesides and our 
hearts. To-day it is a mother who hears 
the chiming of the golden bells across the 
misty sea and fearlessly enters the phantom 
bark that carries her to the thither shore. 
In vain her children reach out their eager 
hands to bid her stay^ in vain their plaintive 
voices call her back; the silvery fog receives 
her and her dear name becomes but 'a sanc- 
tified memory within our home. 

Again, it is the dimpled baby that feels 
the soft enfolding of angel arms that carry 
him beyond the misty breakers. Gently 
as a shadow rests upon a white rose fall the 
fringes of his fading eyes; softly as a sum- 
mer wind dies among the flowers vanishes 
his fluttering breath from off the breast 
where we, with tears, so closely held him! 
He is gone, and the silent mist receives him, 
too, as sunrise receives a fading star. A 
trusty servant is dead. Hearing a sum- 
mons more imperative than ours could ever 
be, the faithful hands lay by their task, the 
willing feet tarry while yet the errand is un- 



2 1 4 ^mhzx CHXitxts. 

accomplished, and out into the gray shadow 
passes a heart that was ever true and a love 
that was both loyal and incorruptible. And 
now "old Blaze" is gone. Twelve years he 
lived with us. He had been more faithful 
than many friends. He had been more will- 
ing than many lovers. He had served us 
as steadily in storm as in sunshine, and 
never rebelled when duty called him to face 
the icicle blast or the driving snow. People 
have said to us: "You do unwisely to trust 
old Blaze so implicitly! Age is not always 
steadiness, nor do years insure reliability; 
he will do mischief yet." But he never 
abused our confidence, nor failed us in the 
trust confided to his care. Bravely and un- 
weariedly he carried our hearts' treasures, 
a load of laughing children, through the 
wooded drives and all along the bluffs of 
our summer home. He held his glossy head 
high and curved his shining neck with pride, 
feeling with almost human intelligence 
the responsibilities placed upon him. The 
other day poor Blaze was sick. He trembled 
like a leaf and refused to eat. His eyes 
sought ours with almost human pleading 
for relief. We gave him what remedies we 
could and left him at night with a farewell 



^xtxhzx tflXxnt&. 215 

touch on his slender nose of encouragement 
and cheer. To-morrow, we thought, old 
Blaze would be himself again. To-morrow 
came, and found him dead among the with- 
ering grasses of the pasture that had been 
his summer home. The head which had 
ever been held so high at our approach was 
low; the eye that had never failed in its wel- 
come was unheedful. Poor, faithful old 
Blaze! here's to your memory. May the 
record of your faithful service endure for- 
ever in our hearts. May the lesson of an 
unfailing devotion teach us a new loyalty to 
our friends. May the memory of your en- 
durance make us brave and the recollection 
of your docility make us kind. And when 
your fleet limbs are in the grave and a new 
horse stands in the harness may the chil- 
dren, remembering you, be kinder to every 
dumb animal, slower to deeds of heedless 
cruelty toward any of God's creatures to 
whom he has given almost human powers 
of affection, but denied the power of speech. 



»®< 



The doctor has ordered me a rest, evi- 
dently expecting it to be served like a plate 



2i6 ^mlbzx flints. 

of hot cakes. All I am supposed to do is to 
recline on a couch and say to Providence: 
"Please bring me a rest medium rare and 
without gravy." That is the way we order 
beef, my dear, but the same methods do not 
apply to bodily and mental recuperation. I 
should like to append a diary of the few 
days I have been spending at home rest- 
ing(?). 

Monday — Thought I would sleep late, 
but was so accustomed to rising before sun- 
rise that I yielded to the force of habit and 
was up at 5:30. As the girl had been out 
all night to a dance and was feeling tired 
thought I would get breakfast. Spent the 
morning looking over closets and tinkering 
loose door-knobs. In the afternoon seated 
the boy's knickerbockers and sewed on nine- 
teen dozen shoe buttons. Went to bed at 
II, after spending the evening cleaning out 
the stove to rid the room of coal-gas. 

Tuesday — Cleaned woodshed. 

Wednesday — Took up the sitting-room 
carpet and helped wash paint. 

Thursday — Girl's day out and had com- 
pany to tea. In the evening upholstered 
the old lounge, 

Friday — The whole family down with the 



J^mtrjev (flints. 217 

grip. Made toast for seven invalids and 
squeezed lemons for drink. Removed cans 
from back yard and set out slips. 

Saturday — Girl left. Took her place in 
kitchen. Family still ill and demands for 
toast alternated with cries for gruel. Washed 
seven thousand dishes and baked bread. 

Sunday — ^Pump gave out. Spent the 
morning hauling buckets out of a deep cis- 
tern. To-day is Monday and the prospects 
are good for doing the family wash, as every 
washerwoman within a radius of three 
miles is dying with the grip. At this pace 
of recuperation by the end of another week 
I shall be in Rose Hill. Out of all this 
arises the old question the poet asked of the 
winds, the moon and the sea, 'Where shall 
rest be found ?'^ Nowhere, my dear, this 
side the little plat of ground that is getting 
ready to bring out its crop of April grasses , 
and May buttercups, where you and I some 
day shall sleep the happy years away. 



2i8 Jimlrjev dXttxts* 



CHAPTER V. 

I never hear the term ''old maid'' but what 
something within me stirs Hke a tiger thirst- 
ing for gore. When it shall be a reproach 
for green apples to ripen, for buds to blow 
and for May to orb into June, then it shall 
be a disgrace for girls to grow to be old. 
And when you find me a married woman 
who is never cranky and odd and queer, 
then you may say that it is a blight upon 
a girFs life to be unmated. There are not 
many women who have not had the op- 
portunity to marry if they would. Look 
about you and count the unhappy wives 
who would be unmarried if they could. 
Mated to a clown, a tyrant or a knave, they 
spend their lives in turmoil, and yet mark 
how they join in the jest and sneer at the 
expense of the ''old maid." All glory to the 
woman who is independent enough to wear 
the badge of spinsterhood rather than marry 
for a home, and the tenderest reverence for 
the woman who remains faithful to a grave 



^mhi^x (Mints. 219 

and flaunts no flower of second love above 
it. 

It is all very well for ''Mary" while youth 
dashes her cheek with crimson, and lights 
her eyes with the sparkle of its elixir, while 
her father is prosperous and the old roof- 
tree stands safe above her head. Life has 
no more difficult problem than the selection 
of a bonnet or the matching of a shade. 
Friends congregate around like swallows on 
the eaves of a gambrel roof, and the years 
stretch before her like the vista of a sun- 
lighted boulevard. But one day Mary 
awakens to the fact that girlhood has de- 
parted, younger sisters have grown to mat- 
ronly years, school friends are young moth- 
ers, and the family record points away back 
into the mists of antiquity to date her birth. 
What shall she do now? Shall she enter 
into a contract with a man for whom she 
does not care a rap, to sew on buttons and 
keep house in exchange for his name and 
convoy? Being a brainy, sensible woman, 
Mary passes over her last chance, such as it 
is, and emerges alone from the shadowy 
and music-haunted woods of youth into the 
companionless sweep and uneventful desert 
of middle life. 



220 ^mhi^ic C!5tints. 

Fathers have a trick of dying, and moth- 
ers as well, leaving elderly daughters 
doubly alone in the world. One by one the 
shingles in the old roof-tree crumble and 
Mary is by and by left homeless and alone 
in the world. The children of her prosper- 
ous brothers and sisters love her and long 
to hear her tell them stories and make 
shadow-pictures for them in the firelight as 
she flits from home to home for longer and 
longer tarryings. She earns her right to a 
shelter and a home by darning stockings, 
patching rents, rocking cradles and nursing 
the sick. If little Johnny takes the fever 
Aunt Mary tends him. When baby dies 
Aunt Mary folds white buds in the waxen 
hands and drops the last tear on its quiet 
face. When the girls are married Aunt 
Mary gives the parting pat to bridal fixings 
and is the mother's rival in the bride's fond 
love. She merges her identity in the well- 
being of those who love her and for whom 
she lives. Patiently she plods along her 
uneventful way, finding her religion in 
every-day duties well performed, her rights 
in just the service heaven has ordained for 
her, easing others' burdens, dusting parlors, 
sweeping rooms or making beds, with 



^mhj^x ^Xinis. 221 

brave, reliant heart, accepting each span of 
the way unquestioning. 

She ahvays has a word of sympathy for 
young folks and their escapades. When a 
pitcher is broken or a vase shattered by care- 
less hands Aunt Mary shoulders the respon- 
sibility to save the young ones from a scold- 
ing. She may fret a bit now and then, but 
what of that? Do not the married sisters 
do the same? At last one day "Aunt Mary" 
dies. Faded and careworn and old she lies 
before us. Feebly her fingers grope for the 
touch of the hands she has held so often 
between her patient palms. The eyes that 
have never mirrored themselves in the eyes 
of children of her own kindle with a light we 
never before beheld in their serene depths. 
With a prayer on her lips for our welfare, 
with a backward glance of abiding love for 
us, she slips away and the shadows veil her 
from our sight forever. What angel bands 
come down to greet her, what radiant crown 
is granted and what sweet benediction of 
peace is hers we cannot tell. But this we 
know, that dear, queer, unselfish, simple- 
hearted Aunt Mary shall take precedence 
over man}^ who called her '^old maid" here. 
For God is no respecter of persons, and 



22.2 %xa%zx %\ixit%. 

"they who know my will and do it" shall 
shine yonder when the fair and the learned 
and the wise are forgotten. 



I met a friend the other morning on the 
cars. He looked so thin and suspiciously 
bright of eye that I was on the point of 
exclaiming as to his appearance, when he 
fortunately interrupted me with this re- 
mark: ''Amber, I have a topic for you." 

Assuring him that topics were what I was 
after, he proceeded as follows : 

*^'I wish you would write up the busy- 
bodies who are always telling a fellow how 
badly be looks. (Oh, how I shook hands 
with myself.) Every old lady I meet lately 
has something to say about how thin I am, 
until I hardly care to ride outside the smok- 
ing car on my way to town.'^ 

After all, there is a good bit of justice in 
my friend's complaint. It is not pleasant 
to be told that one looks ill, that the flesh 
is fading from the bones and (by implica- 
tion) that one is on the quarter-stretch of 
life's race-track. Such communications are 



^rahzx ^Xttxts. 223 

about as soothing as the remarks of an on- 
looker might be, who, seeing our boat 
adrift in the rapids above Niagara, should 
bawl from the band: ^'Hi! young fellow, 
you're going over the falls!'' '^Say, my 
friend, you'll be drowned in another min- 
ute!" Knowing your condition yourself 
would be bad enough, but to have it roared 
at you by the lusty rustic would make you 
feel like coming back from the other world 
to punch his head. If we cannot find some- 
thing cheery to say to one another when we 
meet let us keep silence, as the Friends do, 
and wait for the spirit to send us a glimmer 
of sense. 



I read a story once about a certain king's 
son who wandered through his father's 
country bearing a flask of royal wine and 
beseeching those whom he met to quench 
their thirst. Some refused, being slow to 
perceive, through the disguise that he wore, 
that their would-be benefactor was of kingly 
birth. Some laughed the proffered wine to 
scorn and would none of it, preferring rather 
to drink stale beer. Some tasted, and slyly 



224 ^mhzx (flints. 

spat it out, not liking the flavor. In all the 
land there was not found one to drain the 
cup, or thank the giver, although the wine 
he carried was of royal vintage, and about 
his brows wavered the softened shadow of a 
crown. That, thought I to myself, is a fit 
representation of the disadvantages of su- 
periority in a sordid world. Better keep your 
flask corked tight than waste its aroma upon 
those who prefer cheap beer. Consort with 
your own kind and drink together of the 
special nectar the gods pour for you, but do 
not hope to educate the tastes of such as 
were born without perception of the finer 
flavors. Though you bray a fool, yet shall 
his folly not depart from him, and although 
you offer wine all day to a donkey, he will 
turn from you to quench his thirst in a way- 
side pool. 



Of what avail is all the reform work in the 
world against the power of evil and the 
coronation of sin? A few women work to- 
gether to crush the head of the old v/hisky 
serpent under their heel. What do they ac- 
complish in a country where immigration 



J^mtrjeie Cl^Xints. 225 

and evil heredity, with the right to propa- 
gate a miserable species, have it their own 
way? If you and I were to go out and seek 
to purify the waters of our own vile-smelling 
river by sprinkling cologne into it, we 
should be doing just about as telling work 
as the well-meaning reformers are doing 
against the progress of evil in the land. 



It is slow work waiting for the summer to 
get rid of its weeds ; waiting for the bats to 
"fly away and give place to singing birds; 
waiting for the clouds to roll by and let in 
the shining of steady blue weather. But 
God's time is some time, and though you 
and I may be dead and gone to dust a thou- 
sand years before it comes to pass, some day 
there will be nothing to drink but the King's 
wine, and no thirst remaining but such as it 
can assuage. 



i^^ 



Somebody is really talking of establishing 
a colony on some distant island of the sea, 
where an attempt shall be made to rear a 
race of unblemished and sin-untampered 



226 ^mhzx (flints. 

souls. Given a hundred orphaned babies, 
with the surety that they are not direct de- 
scendants of habitual criminals, and nurture 
them in absolute cleanliness both physically 
and morally, and I do not see why the 
product might not be like the fruitage of a 
well-cared-for, pruned and grafted apple- 
tree. The little ones are to be brought to 
years of maturity with absolutely no knowl- 
edge of vice or the appliances by which vice 
feeds and multiplies in the world. Whisky, 
tobacco, cards, everything that tends to the 
downfall of man from his primal estate (how 
about women?) are to be absolutely tabooed. 
At a marriageable age these sheltered lambs 
are to be allowed to choose mates among 
themselves, and who shall say what beautiful 
results shall begin to brighten and bloom by 
about the fourth generation? I declare, if 
I had no prior ties I would engage myself 
to go out with that colony as head nurse. 
I can imagine nothing better, without it 
might be to die and go direct to the angels. 



I was born under an evil star. Luck has 
always been against me. For instance, if 



^mhj^ic flints, 227 

the looms of America turn out one fabric 
more desperately shoddy than another I am 
sure to get it for a dress pattern. If the 
hens of this great and fine country conspire 
together to impose an especially stale egg 
upon the market, I am the one who joyous- 
ly undertakes to break that tgg into the pot 
of morning coffee. And so it is not to be 
wondered at that I had hardly touched the 
pillow, on my memorable ride through 
Central New York, when the conductor dis- 
covered that there was something wrong 
with my ticket. I spent the night in seek- 
ing to convince relays of New York Central 
railway officials that I was not an imposter. 
I never knew how hard it was to prove 
respectability. Somehow one gets used to 
the fact that one is honest and of good re- 
pute, just as one gets used to the fact that 
one is white or able-bodied, and any doubt 
thrown upon the self-evident fact is a blow. 
I knew in the face of all compromising cir- 
cumstances that I came honestly by the 
ticket which caused so much excitement in 
the liveried bosom of the various conduc- 
tors, but I had no means of convincing them 
of the fact. Consequently my entire journey 
until the end of the route was passed in vain 



228 ^mhj^x flints. 

and baffling disputations. But it takes dis- 
cipline to bring out the character, just as it 
takes storms to season timber, and I trust 
those conductors are chastened and better 
men for having met me and my ticket. 



Good nature is an excellent attribute, 
and for domestic use cannot be surpassed by 
any one of the Christian graces. But too 
much good nature is apt to make a person 
appear like a half-wit. It is one thing to be 
amiable, and another thing to be stupid; 
blessed be he or she who in this as in other 
things, finds the golden mean. To stand 
around with your eyes like china saucers and 
invite people to insult you and impose upon 
you, just to show off your sweet dis- 
position, savors a little too much of the 
disposition of the imbecile hen or the woolly 
sheep to suit me. If there is any of the 
human in your make-up (and a man or 
woman without it might as well be without 
a spine !) the temptation to pitch in and get 
€ven with the boor who insults you, or with 
the rogue who seeks to outwit you, is too 



^mhtx (^Xint». 229 

strong to be resisted. To treat a certain 
class of people with "silent contempt" is too 
much like seeking to calm a mad dog by 
the music of flutes. A shotgun would be 
more effectual. Flutes and dignity are well 
enough for summer eves and for lovers and 
poets; but when you come to deal with 
brutes and boors clubs and self-assertion 
will do the business better. 



»#< 



One of the experiments of Thanksgiving 
day just passed, in a certain little home 
where there is more love than gold, was to 
try and act as though certain it was the last 
Thanksgiving day to be spent together as an 
individual family. And it was a great suc- 
, cess. Several times there was a good chance 
for a quarrel, but the proposed thought put 
a quietus on every tongue. Grandma found 
herself handed about from place to place, 
like a venerable queen under special escort. 
The cushions were adjusted, and the foot- 
stool brought without a murmur, and when 
it came time for the dear old head to seek 
its pillow, the whispered word in some- 



230 ^mhzx (flints. 

body's ear that '^it had been the pleasant- 
est day she had spent for a great many 
years'^ proved the success of the experiment 
so far as grandma was concerned. And 
that member of the Httle band who is always 
''spoiling for a fight/' as the boys say, who 
goes around breathing flame, as it were, and 
to whom the very stones in the street cry 
aloud for vengeance, was so beautifully held 
in check that long before night she had 
beaten the record of all previous good be- 
havior. It is a good thing, my dear^ once 
in a while to face this 'last time" business. 
There is a last time for everything on its way 
for you and for me. There will be a last 
time to awake in the morning, a last time to 
go to business, a last time to read the daily 
paper, a last time to say good-morning and 
good-by. There will be a last time to speak 
a loving word to the wife, or the child, or 
the husband, a last time to be cross and dis- 
obliging, a last time to be courteous and 
sweet. There will be a last time to light 
the evening lamp and a last time to ex- 
tinguish it, a last time to disrobe the tired 
body and a last time to fall asleep on earth. 
Don't you think, in face of this thought, it 
behooves us to occasionally compose our- 



3^mtj;et; (Mints, 231 

selves as though the last opportunity to be 
true and brave and strong and pure had 
reached us? Were to-day our last day on 
earth, I wonder if we would worry much 
about how our dress was going to fit or 
whether or no we would be invited to some- 
body's big reception. I wonder if envy or 
ambition or hatred or any such thing would 
linger another moment in our hearts. I 
think not, my dear, I think not. 

How strange it is that street car corpo- 
rations put so few men, comparatively, to 
work. There are lay figures who ride up and 
down, automatons who pull straps and 
gather in fares, but when it comes to men 
they are rare. The other evening I was rid- 
ing on a certain grip. A modest young 
woman near me in clear and audible tones 
requested to be put off at Caramel street. 
The conductor stopped the car for her four 
blocks beyond, at Gingerbread avenue. A 
meek protest on her part was met by ducal 
silence and royal reserve. I wanted to say 
to her, "Dear child, be happy that It let you 
off at all ! Bless your stars, my sweet maid. 



232 ^mhi^x ClXints. 

that It did not carry you clear through to 
the end of the route !" Another time, hav- 
ing the innocent purpose in my heart of 
catching a train, I asked a conductor how 
long it took to go to the end of the route. 
"Half an hour from here," replies my 
brave bird. So I settled back in my seat 
content. After the lapse of forty-five min- 
utes I mildly asked why I had not been 
given the correct information at first, so that 
I might have sought other and swifter 
means of conveyance. Do you think I got 
any answer? Does the unweaned babe get 
an answer when it questions the distant 
moon? The desire to shed the blood of the 
menial who had made me lose my train was 
so strong upon me that I left the car hur- 
riedly and said my prayers all the way over 
to the depot. Don't blame the officials for 
all the outrages imposed upon the public. 
Put the blame where, five out of every seven 
times, it belongs, with the putty men who 
run the cars. 



Sailing into harbor comes the old weath- 
er-beaten craft again. The lettering on its 



^mhzx mints. 233 

side bespeaks good cheer, but the command 
of the ship has long been usurped by a 
pirate crew, largely made up of carking 
cares and dark debts and deep anxieties. 
We used to go out on the headlands and 
toss our caps when we saw old '^Christmas" 
in the offing, but of late years we are more 
apt to sneak out behind the house to weep 
over our poor little emptied pocketbooks 
and hide ourselves from the righteous de- 
mands of the butcher and the baker, whose 
claims have been ignored and set aside that 
we might pay tribute to an extortionate 
Christmas. The days of small gifts, with 
love to prompt them, have long gone by, 
and competition has its clutch upon the 
throat of even the Lord's natal day. 



I think it was the great Goethe who said 
that a man could always be judged by what 
made him laugh. Whether the utterance of 
Goethe or of plain John Smith, it is the ut- 
terance of profound wisdom. I am willing, 
for my part, to choose my friend, be that 
friend man or woman, by the test above 



234 ^mhzx (Mints. 

mentioned. I may make a mistake if I at- 
tempt to gauge him by the church he at- 
tends, the coat he wears, or the language he 
uses, but I shall be pretty sure of a correct 
estimate if I watch for what amuses him. 
The man who laughs at the moral downfall 
of his brother man is a human ghoul. I 
think I should find a hospital ward quite as 
humorous a place as the scene of a fellow- 
creature's mastery by temptation. When 
the poor, half-crazy inebriate reels by, with 
his whisky-infliamed brain, it may perhaps 
be a sight to make devils laugh with exul- 
tation, but the men and women who find 
the spectacle a merry one are not the sort 
I care to cultivate. 

The laugh that is expended on the min- 
ister when he falls from his high estate, or 
the defaulter when he skips with his boodle, 
or the woman when she shames her sex by 
misconduct, is not the laughter that proves 
a good heart and a pure conscience. It is, 
to other laughter, what the hyena's grin is 
to the smile of the June morning, or the 
screech of a night-hawk to the carol of a 
lark. If I see a boy in school laughing 
when, another is punished, I do not need a 
prophet to tell me what sort of a man that 



^mlbzx flints. 235 

boy will make. The malicious spirit within 
him will work out its own harvest just as 
the seeds of thistles sprout prickly fruit. 

The mirth that is invoked by the discom- 
fiture of others is the index of a low mind. 
It is a common thing- to hear a boisterous 
laugh when a poor unfortunate falls head- 
long on the icy pavement, or stumbles over 
a bit of rumpled carpet and measures his 
length before a roomful of guests, but to 
my thinking such laughter is the outcome 
of ill breeding and a hard heart. 

It does not need protracted blowing to 
yield the sound of a trumpet, the first blast 
is enough; and it does not require long 
acquaintance with a man to find out what 
material he is made of. Open laughter at 
the embarrassment of another is a certain 
test that the metal is poor. 

Merry, heartfelt laughter is a great sweet- 
ener of life, but, like good coffee, it must 
be well cleared of the grounds of ill will and 
contain no deleterious admixture of com- 
mon chickory. There is nothing on earth 
more delightful to listen to than witty laugh- 
ter, and nothing more tormenting than the 
silly and causeless cachination of fools. Be- 
tween a laugh and a giggle there is the 



236 J^mlrjev (f^Xinis. 

width of the horizon. I could sit all day 
and listen to the heartsome ha! ha! of a 
couple of bright and jolly men, but would 
rather be shot with a Winchester rifle, at 
short range, than be forced to listen to the 
te ! he I of a pair of ill-natured or silly gossips. 
A really wicked man seldom laughs. Hu- 
mor is not the gift of the cruel or the im- 
pure, and humor of the genuine sort is next 
to the divine attribute in any nature. A 
person who has a real "Dickensy" sense of 
humor will not usually laugh at the wrong 
thing. A smutty story has no charm for 
such. Vice and impurity cannot thrive 
under the open and mellow influence of a 
genial and humorous nature. And also the 
men and women endowed with this choice 
attribute are loth to do an unkind deed to 
either a fellow creature or the most insig- 
nificant brute. They will step out of their 
way to avoid crushing a toiling ant, and 
their tears for others' ills are quite as ready 
as their laughter for others' weal. 

Cultivate that part of your nature, then, 
that helps you see the bright and mirth- 
some side of life. So shall you be enabled 
to shed many of life's troubles, as the plum- 
age of the bird sheds the rain. But discour- 



^mhzx mints. 237 

age all tendencies to find amusement in any- 
thing that is harsh or uncharitable, or im- 
pure, and thus do your mite towards rid- 
ding the world of many of its thorns and 
weeds, planting velvet-leaved pansies of lov- 
ing and happy thoughts instead. 



There are more bondages than the bond- 
age of sin. Bad habits are not the only 
chains that proclaim a state of servitude. 
Take the conformist, the person who is 
afraid to take a single step in life without 
first stopping to question what people are 
going to say about it. No old African slave 
in dread of the lash was ever under more 
cruel bondage. Take the case of good old 
Mr. Smith. His health demands ale, or 
beer, perhaps. He is afraid to buy it for 
fear the neighbors will see the bottles de-' 
livered. He is afraid to drink it at a restau- 
rant for fear somebody will see him. He is 
afraid to show a little common sense and 
tone up his own body, taking the responsi- 
bility upon his soul, because he is a slave to 
the idle opinion of folks who don't care a 



238 ^mhtTC CSXints* 

snap what he does with himself, and who 
will dismiss his case lightly, as a bee dis- 
misses a buckwheat blossom when it has 
extracted the last drop of honey. Gossip 
is the honey that stocks the hives of human 
bees. If Mr. Smith would argue this or 
any other question out with his conscience 
and his God (if he owns either) and act 
upon a fair understanding with either or 
both, regardless of popular opinion, he 
would no longer be a slave, but a free man 
with the glorious privilege suddenly cast 
before him of being independent. Take the 
slave to punctuality. I would rather dwell 
with a wild man of the woods than spend 
my days with the lunatic whose whole ex- 
istence hinges upon a time-card. It doesn't 
particularly matter whether he takes the 8 
o'clock train or the one ten minutes later, 
but do you suppose anything short of sud- 
den death would keep him from that special 
train? What if you do get left once in a 
while? It is not a matter of eternal salva- 
tion with you, is it? Of course, it is well 
to be prompt;, but there are circumstances 
to modify even punctuality, and I believe in 
asserting independence once in a while, 
rather than be chained to a dial-plate. 



^mhtic (fUints. 239 

"Come, hurry up!" pipes the punctual bird, 
^'we shall be late!" And things go with a 
whew; breakfast with a bang, and family 
prayers by steam, to serve no other earthly 
purpose than to keep that man's time-serv- 
ing record clean. And the tired woman, 
she who is under bondage to the legend of 
stereotyped housekeeping. It is summer 
weather, perhaps, and nobody sits in the 
parlor. Everybody chooses the piazzas and 
the hammocks, but do you suppose this 
slave to housekeepers' custom failed to 
sweep on Friday? Her windows m.ust be 
cleaned bi-weekly, her silver polished, and 
a lot of other non-essentials attended to, 
sink or swim, live or die! Why? Be- 
cause she is a slave to non-essentials, and 
wants to keep the chains rubbed bright. If 
tired women would rj&gulate matters with a 
little more regard for comfort, and less for 
custom, life would take on serener aspects. 



Hark, how the winds are abroad to-night ! 
Sit back in your comfortable chair, while 
the woodbine shadows flicker on the wall. 



240 ^mhi^x flints, 

and no sound save the measured ticking of 
the clock breaks the stillness of your quiet 
room. Fold your hands listlessly^ and let 
the tired eyelids rest upon your tired eyes 
awhile. You and I will never grow too old 
I am thinking, to dream our dreams, to 
build our castles, or muse upon the mean- 
ing of the restless voices of the wind. What 
is the language to-night of these hurrying 
hosts that fill the sky? They tell of swirling 
wastes of billow, and stranded wrecks; of 
ships sucked down like straws beneath a 
yeasty sea; of white hands flung up in un- 
noted appeal; of gleaming brows touched 
by the fitful moonlight — one moment seen, 
then gone forever; of sea-gulls beating 
wearied breasts against high lonely towers 
of cliff; of ragged headlands and booming 
breakers; of mountain passes, where Nature 
tones her thunder, harp of pines; of lonely 
summits where the eagle builds her nest, 
and shuddering torrents leap strong-footed 
to the vales ; of grand forests, and lonesome 
haunts that foot of man has never trod; of 
tireless prairies and sweeps of hill-girt plain ; 
of lonely graves and headstones fretted with 
the dim splendor of the wind-hurried moon 



I^mtsxv ^litxts. 241 

— ^but positively, my dear, this is not cheer- 
ful; let's light the lamp, and chat awhile. 

Did you ever test the beatitudes of coun- 
try living? Did you ever own a garden 
patch and cultivate a cow? Did you ever go 
mad on chickens, and expend a fortune on 
fancy stock? I used to think that to live in 
the country was only a round or two from 
the acme of human bliss. I imagined that 
milk, set away in gleaming pans, by some 
secret influence of the stars resolved itself 
into golden pats of butter, stamped with a 
full blown rose, and ready for use. I fondly 
believed that cheese was a spontaneous 
growth — that eggs lay about loose like 
posies in a flower bed, that chickens in their 
juicy prime walked, ready dressed, to the 
dinner pot, and bullocks and fatling lambs 
laid themselves gently down in choice 
steaks and ruby chops ready for the eating. 
The heaviest cares of a country house-wife, 
I thought, were feeding fluffy chickens, and 
weeding flower beds. It came to pass in the 
delirium of house-hunting, a certain man 
proposed renting a suburban home for the 
season. There was a sound of revelry by 
night — packing trunks ! A caravan wended 
its way out of the city gates — 'twas the 



242 Jimtrjcv CHXints. 

household of Isaac headed for rustic meads. 
And here we are, all that is left of us. What 
with running to catch the early trains, the 
head of the family has already scattered 
twenty pounds of flesh to the winds. The 
family heir has only been chased nineteen 
times by cows in the six weeks since we 
arrived, and rescued only eleven times from 
the depths of the cistern. We have already 
invested in chickens. Long legged fowls 
stalk to and fro — roosters in full Turkish 
costume loiter about the doorstep and 
chuckle fiendishly when we appear in re- 
mote perspective, waving dish towels to 
frighten them away. I don't think I should 
be afraid of common poultry — there is noth- 
ing blood-curdling in the demure pullet or 
the cheerful cock of my youthful recollec- 
tion — but these singular creatures seem like 
wild visions of a disordered mind, the un- 
canny brood of goblin eggs. With that 
beautiful idea of the eternal fitness of things 
which characterizes his every action, a cer- 
tain man has purchased a peacock to adorn 
the grounds. This morning I laid a gray 
hair significantly across his coat sleeve (the 
man's, not the peacock's), merely remark- 
ing: "The result, unhappy man, of your evil 



^mhi^x (flints. 243 

voiced bird. Every time he opens his 
mouth I think that Gabriel's trump is sound- 



ing P' 

We had a cow, a guileless, hornless ani- 
mal with liquid eyes and fragrant breath, 
but alas for prophetic custards and golden 
cream, she has choked to death with a 
turnip ! 

Our garden ; there at least is full fruition 
for every promise of delight. This morning 
it was a pleasant scene to watch the master 
of this fruitful domain march briskly forth 
with his shovel and an armful of scrubby 
twigs. 

"What have you there?" questioned the 
"blessed demoizeP' from an upper window. 

"Crab apples!" came back the blithe re- 
sponse. 

Perhaps they were, dear, but they looked 
like dead switches. 

One day I devoted to planting peas. 
"How charming," quoth I from the depths 
of a yellow sunbonnet, "to invite our city 
friends to dine on fresh peas plucked from 
our dewy vines!" Next morning broke 
over the dreamy world, and discovered those 
demon fowls, closely attended by the chant- 
ing peacock, scratching my cherished crop 



244 ^xnhj^ic stints, 

to the surface. I planted them again, this 
time two feet deep, to circumvent the chick- 
ens. '^'We shall not make ourselves danger- 
ously ill on peas this summer, my dear/' 
was Isaac's brief comment. 

Thinking that a country home would be 
incomplete without a dog, Isaac dragged 
one home the other night, muzzled and in 
chains. I might be tempted to approach a 
bull of Bashan, or trifle with a Bengal tiger, 
but counted gold would not lure me within 
ten feet of that brute. He sits upon his 
haunches in the outhouse and bays bloodily 
at every foot-fall. He gives us no rest, and 
the duet of dog and peacock bids fair to 
quench reason's tremulous spark forever. 
He will soon die of starvation, as no one 
dares approach him with food. 

But oh! there are lots of lovely things in 
country living! Such entrancing glimpses 
of the lake. A pathway of ever-changing 
opal; an azure heaven fallen earthward like 
the petal of a violet from its stem; a waste 
of silver gray flecked with rose and fluted 
by soft winds! Ah, match me if you can 
the splendor of my morning walks, by the 
borders of this inland sea! And the swift 
miracle of the season's advance! Yester- 



day the fields were brown — to-day green as 
the sheen of Niagara's plunge; yesterday 
the thickets scarce hid the wandering bird; 
to-day, though you searched an hour, you 
could not find the covert where its shy wing 
broods upon its hidden nest. I think after 
all, my dear, the pros have it for country 
living. 

Before we leave our chair and cease our 
chatting, let us say a word about walking. 
Few women walk gracefully. Few women 
know how to walk, and fewer know how to 
breathe. The chest does not hold your full 
breathing apparatus. The muscles that help 
fill the lungs like the handles of the bellows, 
lie in the abdomen. Breathe from there; 
fill your lungs full, using those poor neg- 
lected muscles which tight lacing and ignor- 
ance have made almost useless to you. Draw 
in breath as you scent a sweet, sweet rose, 
with a long, full, deep inhalation ; erect your 
head, expand your chest; hold yourselves 
erect and evenly-poised, without mincing, 
or lolling, or bending forward or backward, 
and walk away as God meant you should 
walk with the graceful stride, and the lis- 
some abandon of a young roe. Throw 
away French heels, cast off deforming 



246 ^mhzx (§Xints» 

bustles, fold up your corsets, and be nat- 
ural. Walk daily in this way, not in the 
ceaseless round of shopping, but strike for 
the country roads, where the clover lies in 
limitless acres of purple bloom, and the turf 
is as elastic and soft as a velvet pile, and I 
give you my word, you will daily grow beau- 
tiful and be counted with the daughters of 
the gods! 

''What is the matter?^' I asked of the big 
policeman. 

"Nothing; only a girl in a fit!" was his 
answer, as he motioned the crowd back from 
what seemed to be a struggling bundle of 
rags thrown down on the rough" stones of 
the alley. 

I walked on a few steps, then turned and 
approached the object about which only 
men and boys were gathering. A dark, 
pinched little face, with half-closed eyes and 
a few flecks of foam about the lips, lay pil- 
lowed on a dirty bag full of street refuse. 
A pair of bony hands, grimed with the soil 
of contact with all that was noisome and 
vile, fluttered a little, and were still. Two 



Jimbev flints. 247 

eyes that were strangely blue and sweet for 
that wan, discolored face stretched wide un- 
derneath the smiling of a far-off heaven that 
was scarcely more blue than they. A couple 
of bare feet laid in a repose that was new 
and strange at noonday. A wasted and 
shrunken breast, under which the heart of 
■a more desolate childhood never beat. I 
drew as near as I could to the miserable 
little creature, then stopped as though a wall 
of stone had intervened between us. What 
could such delicate creatures as you and I 
do with this heap of vermin-infected hu- 
manity, my dear? Could we stoop to gath- 
er that tangled, dirty little head against the 
fresh corsage of our best suit, and bestow 
the sacrament of a caressing touch on that 
brow which, perhaps, never yet felt the sun- 
shine of love's kiss? Could we sit down 
there on the stones and chafe those grimy 
hands, or, for decency's sake, throw our own 
costly wrap over those distorted limbs? 

Why not? 

I have no answer, my dear. I can only re- 
turn, dumbly, glance for glance and agree 
with you that we could not afford to do 
these things which the Lord of Heaven, 
passing by that scene of pain and desolation, 



248 ^xahzx flints, 

would surely have done. We have not the 
moral courage to be literal followers of Him 
whom we sometimes try to serve. 

So, with a shudder, I stood aside and 
watched the indifferent yet not altogether 
unkindly policemen bear away that mite of 
wrecked childhood in their arms and carry 
it lightly to the ambulance. I uttered no 
word save a half inaudible ^'poor little 
thing!" — such as one might have bestowed 
upon a hurt kitten. I saw the little waif 
carried away comfortless and desolate to a 
pauper's bed, and perhaps, by God's good 
mercy, to a pauper's grave. For what, 
pray tell me, is a kinder boon for such as 
she than an early recall from the life that 
yields them naught but bitterness? Why 
should we nurse back the flickering flame of 
vitality in the breast of misery-burdened 
childhood such as this? Could some great 
and kindly hand descend from the sky and 
with discriminating touch separate these 
sunless, root-blighted weeds from the flow- 
ers that fill the King's garden, what a mercy 
it would be to all! Could all these noisome, 
pitiful growths be weeded out early and for- 
ever, what a solution of humanity's dark 
problem would be solved! If only bright 



^mhzx (flints. 249 

heads and clean sweet faces were in our 
way to be caressed and cared for, how much 
easier v/e should find it to do our duty and 
succor the helpless. 

But, alas for our delicate sensibilities, our 
new suits and our perception of what con- 
forms to the proprieties, the hand that 
weeds the gardens of earth is no discrimin- 
ating one. It plucks the ''wee white rose 
of all the world"' full many a time and 
spares the nettle and the tare; it will revive 
to yet more years of misery and squalor 
and sin this little weed of the streets, and 
bear away into the "pale realm of death" 
the idolized and the love-guarded. If we 
would indeed be doing the Master's work 
we mxUSt stoop, as He did, from the bright- 
ness of heaven to the dark depths of hell 
to find, to succor and to save. Next time 
we see a beggar dying; next time we see an 
over-burdened, hard-driven horse; next 
time we see a cruelly-beaten child; next 
time injustice or cruelty or want in loath- 
some shape confronts us, what will we do, 
I wonder? Just what we have always done, 
I'll wager a cooky. Pass by on the other 
side with the white feather of cowardice 
flaunting in our cap. Afraid of a jest, a 



250 ^mhzic flints. 

sneer, a ribald crowd, when the service that 
lies within our power to do might bring the 
peace of heaven into a tortured soul. My 
dear, I'll give it up. This contradictory 
human make-up of ours is too much for me. 
Good-bye. 

As I was walking up the avenue the other 
day, I passed a young and pretty girl, and as 
she flitted by, I caught the words, "Oh, 
dear! I wish that I was dead! I shall never, 
never be happy any more." I wanted to 
stop and say, "You poor, dear little pocket 
edition of June, how will you meet the 
stormy surges further on if the ripples of 
harbor sailing threaten your soul-craft so 
disastrously?" 

Say as you may, there is an age when we, 
all of us, find our greatest happiness in be- 
ing sentimentally wretched. In our teens 
every shower that falls is a tempest, every 
disappointment a heart-break. Little but- 
ter-lipped school-girls write essays in which 
life is compared to a "vale of tears," fame to 
a ^'bubble/' and joy to a ^'thorny rose." We 
cultivate "Julia Mills'" friendships, and 



^vahzx flints. 251 

drink deeply of the cup of ideal sorrow. 
We bear about with us the air of Beard's pic- 
tured monkey, sadly questioning of destiny, 
"For what was I created?" Nobody under- 
stands us ; few are congenial, and fewer still 
can meet the requirements of our phenome- 
nal natures. We are fond of being sur- 
prised in tears, and speak of the tomb as of 
a welcome resting-place. We like to be con- 
sidered delicate, and spend a good deal of 
our time writing poetry and reading devo- 
tional books. Such epidemics of mental 
vaporishness are as natural to youth, sooner 
or later, as whooping-cough and measles to 
babies, and quite as harmless. When the 
genuine sorrows come into our life, they 
come, soft-shod. It is the brook that 
brawls, not the river. It is the silent snow 
that buries up the landmarks, not the fretful 
and complaining rain. The sea lashed by 
tempest is not so dreaded by mariners as the 
windless quiet of becalmed waters. When 
we suffer so that our hearts lie like deserts 
beneath the vertical glare of heaven, with no 
flower of hope to lift its head from the sands 
of desolation, and not even the shadow of a 
bird's wing of comfort between ourselves 
and despair, we are apt to remember the 



252 ^mhzx (Stints. 

bread-and-butter days of life with all their 
little tragedies and burlesque pain, very 
much as the Amazon might remember the 
fret of its hillside beginnings, or as bread, 
baked brown by scorching heat, might re- 
member its days of dough. 

The world is very full of desperate trouble, 
we know. Every heart has its own bitter- 
ness to endure as best it may, and yet I will 
not agree to any doctrine that pronounces 
life anything but a blessing, and the world 
anything but a right good place to live in 
for a while. Life is a beautiful prelude to 
eternity, like the touch of harps and the 
sigh of sweet violins that herald the climax 
of one of Beethoven's symphonies. Did 
you ever find an April unfollowed by May? 
No more certain will be the following of 
sunshine and summer weather after the fit- 
ful unrest of the brief space we call life. 
Only owls and bats seek the shadows and 
live within them. Only cowards and the 
faint-hearted call the world a vale of tears. 
Because there is night-shade in the garden, 
shall we forego its roses? Because bats live, 
need we cage them and hang them in our 
bedrooms? Because it sometimes rains, 
shall we hoist umbrellas in sunny weather? 



^mhj^x Mints. 253 

Because sin and sorrow, tears and death are 
abroad in the world, shall we stand constant- 
ly at the gate in expectancy of their coming, 
like children watching for the band to go 
by, or weep at the windows in neglect of 
our duties, like old women lingering to see a 
funeral procession start off? 

A day or two ago, a sweet hope perished, 
or a friend took his place in the festival hall 
we name heaven, or a child fell asleep in the 
arms of the death angel, or a flower of love 
withered upon its frail stalk. Only the In- 
finite heart knows our sorrow, but behold, 
while yet the tears fall, the sunshine breaks 
through them, if but our faith be steady and 
our courage endures. Somewhere we shall 
find the hope in blossom, and the friend that 
left us so suddenly shall hover like a white 
cloud between us and the sunset gate of 
death. Somewhere the Death Angel shall 
lead us up to the child grown into an im- 
possible beauty, and the withered flower 
we shall find laid within its bosom. 

Take heart, then. Do we mourn when 
hyacinth bulbs break ground, or fruit trees 
snow the air with tinted blossoms, falling 
to the earth, that fruit may follow! Death 
is only the wavering of the blossom, the 



254 ^mhzx flints. 

bursting of the sheath. Between all van- 
ished joys and friends there swings but a 
single gate — one that our last faint dying 
breath shall waft ajar. Some day it shall let 
us in to where they wait and watch and love 
us still. Can we not wait, then, a little while 
in patience? 

As though to prove the wisdom of my 
words, just now, even while I am writing, 
the mystic woof of sunshine, shot with rain, 
is weaving out of doors. It has been storm- 
ing like a wild gust of bitter human tears, 
but now a rosy tide of sunset floods the drip- 
ping world, and the wet streets dimple and 
flash like tearful faces smiling. A moment 
and the eternal sun wins the victory over 
the temporal storm. Away scud the clouds 
like beaten gray-coats of old before the ad- 
vance of our boys in blue. Hurrah for sun- 
shine, then, and banished be the tears! 



Fannie is dead. The news came to me in 
a letter the other day, and although I or- 
dered no crape, and made no alteration in 
the daily procedure of business, yet the 



^mhi^x flints, 255 

fact that Fannie is dead hangs like a weight 
at my heart. Fannie was a gentle soul, not 
without spirit, docile under friendly guid- 
ance, restive when unjustly coerced. Her 
eye was like the depth of a wood-land spring 
for clearness, and as brown as the under 
shade of a chestnut. She was the especial 
friend of those bright years of my hfe, be- 
fore a golden hope had dimmed, or a stream 
run dry. Many a long ramble Fannie and I 
have had together over meadow roads wet 
with dew, and up the laural-crowned hills 
of bright New England. She was not a gar- 
rulous companion, indeed if any one ever 
instanced in her own Hfe the value of gold.- 
en silence over silver speech, she did. But 
ah! She was a rare good listener. I never 
tired of pouring into her ear the confidences 
I dared not or cared not to impart to those 
who talked more, yet often knew less. My 
very first love affair, how well I remember 
it. The nameless one with whom I gathered 
the great pound sweets in August (such ap- 
ples do not grow now a days), the frosted 
nuts in autumn, and the sweet purple violets 
in early spring. Why bless your heart, Fan- 
nie knew all about that affair long before 
the folks at home found it out^ and I think 



256 ^tahzx CHXitxts. 

it was her somewhat reserved bearing 
when we talked the matter over; a certain 
disapproval in those gentle eyes into whose 
liquid depths alas ! I shall never look again, 
that decided me not to chance the irrevoca- 
ble throw on love's first dream. If restless 
youth found no worse counsel than you 
were wont to give dear Fan, I think the 
wrecks would be fewer along the shores of 
life. No thought of unworthy speech, or 
corrupt advice arises to-ni'ght to sully the 
memory of our faithful friendship. No re- 
membered disloyalty casts a shadow athwart 
the years. No black wine of a recalled in- 
gratitude settles like dregs in the cup I quafif 
to the memory of faithful Fan. 

Beyond a certain friskiness of disposition 
that led her occasionally into trouble, and a 
madcap tendency at times to take a five 
barred gate at a bound, or caper around the 
garden like a mad thing, scaring steady go- 
ing old ladies and little children not a Httle, 
Fannie was absolutely perfect. How well 
I remember the old red home where she 
lived. It was gable roofed and almost win- 
dowless, built midway between a clover past- 
ure and a belt of birchen wood. Here she 
dwelt alone, and yet she was never lonely, 



^mhj^x ^XinU, 257 

for the corridors of the quaint old iiouse 
were always echoing with children's voices. 
There was a certain perfume of which Fan- 
nie was very fond, and I never catch the 
scent of new mown hay, but I recall the 
pleasant chamber where she rested when at 
home. It was there that Frank, my preach- 
er cousin Frank, the boy who went out to 
India long ago to become a bald-headed, 
fat old missionary, first surprised us with 
his ministerial gifts. I owe him a grudge for 
those hours of torment in which he preached 
"hell-fire" to me until my young flesh turned 
purple with terror, and Fannie from her 
fragrant corner, uttered often an exclama- 
tion of impatient protest; Sam Jones in his 
loftiest brimstone flights, never soared high- 
er than Frank used to, perched on the cover 
of an old meal chest, with poor little tow- 
headed me, for his one hardened and unre- 
generate hearer. In that well ventilated 
home, through which a draught was always 
blowing sometimes laden with the frag- 
rance of fruit trees all in bloom, sometimes 
with the damp, sweet odor of the wood, 
sometimes with honey from the billows of 
sweet grasses falling like foam in the wake 
of the mower's scythe, the little golden 



258 J^mJbrjexj CUtittts. 

headed baby played, the little sister whose 
dimpled feet grew tired so early, and turned 
aside to rest forever. 

Ah, to-night I see again those little fingers 
wreathed in Fannie's chestnut hair, and hear 
the prattle of those laughing lips as she 
talked her baby talk to ever listening Fan- 
nie ! One night, when we were all asleep in 
the great house, \our father was awakened 
by an unwonted noise, and listening, hardly 
half av/ake, he turned to the sleepy mother, 
saying : 

''Why, that is Fannie, under the window! 
What can she want here this time of night!" 
And rising he found our house in flames, 
and knew that but for faithful Fannie's 
alarm, we all mJght have miserably perished 
together. So after that we grew to regard 
Fannie, not only as our friend, but as our 
preserver. And father said: 

"The gable-roofed house where she has 
lived from her birth, shall be her home until 
her death, and boys, I charge you, if I die 
and Fanny grows old and of little service, 
as the old are apt to be, that you make her 
last days happy and full of plenty." So Fan- 
nie has lived in the old homestead ever 
since. Not a hair of her chestnut locks 



^ttxhzx (BXxnt». 259 

turned gray; hardly a muscle of her proud 
strength relaxed. To be sure the madcap 
spirit of her youth toned down to decorous 
reserve, and the flash in her brown eye took 
: on a paler light, as a taper will when burn- 
ing in the dawn-lit house, but Fannie never 
grew to be a dullard with advancing years. 
They tell me she died at last, as quietly as a 
child falls into slumber after hearty play. 
And I am right glad to know it, and I am 
still more glad to think that in some special 
part of the Heaven where we are going, a 
corner fenced off from the singing folk and 
the harpers, I may, perhaps, find old Fan- 
nie waiting to welcome me; her slender 
nose pointing through the bars as of yore; 
her lithe ears advanced; her big eyes full of 
joy at my coming, as in the good old days 
on the homestead farm she used to stand to 
meet me at the pasture bars — my dear old 
horse; my trusty Fan! 



If I were asked to-night which of many 
gifts I should desire for the little child I love 
best in all the world, I should answer, a 
contented spirit. Not the mere animal con- 



26o ^rtxlttzx flints. 

tentment that makes a man satisfied with 
any condition in life, as the swine with its 
wallow, but that higher spirit that leads a 
child of the Heavenly King to hold himself 
as well content with any dispensation of 
his Father's will. Look about you a little 
now and then, and mark how few of us have 
really great trials to bear. There are mil- 
lions of poor people in the world, and to be 
very poor is no doubt to miss many of the 
good things of this life. But to suffer the 
deprivations of luxury and miss the warmth 
of the purple robe, is, after all, a matter that 
need only touch the perishable part of us. 
If we pray constantly to be delivered from 
the sordidness of poverty, we will find that 
even poverty may be borne. If we serve 
what little we may have in a well-ordered 
and cleanly way, the little will be more apt 
to prove sufficient for our needs. I once 
visited a home where the bread-winner was 
a widow. There were lots of growing chil- 
dren to be cared for, and the income was 
worn threadbare in the passing. But at 
every meal there was pleasant talk and lov- 
ing counsel, the linen and the jests were of 
equal cleanliness, and the merry-making of 
the boys seemed to vie in purity with the 



^mhzx CIXtwt5. 261 

sparkle of the paltry show of glass-ware, so 
that I think there have been courtly spreads 
of less cheer than that of the little table in 
the poor woman's humble home. Some 
way poverty lost its sting in that love- 
sunned circle. I knew that grinding care 
gnawed often at the mother's weary heart, 
and that the long nights frequently found 
her patching and darning the ragged scraps 
of clothes until day was almost ready to 
knock at the gates of. dawn, but it was only 
the surface of things that was ever shadowed 
by the dark wing of want. The inner depths 
of that woman's soul lay ever like a lake that 
reflects the blue of heaven. When I used to 
sit and watch her, I longed for the gift of 
dear old Titbottom's spectacles, that I might 
look beyond the pale, pinched body, and be- 
hold the verity of her sweet and contented 
soul. 

I think I should have found her similitude 
in the vision of a mountain-brook, which, 
through devious ways, and over sharp and 
ragged stones, sings ever of the glorious sea 
to which it hastens, and is fed from the hills 
from whence cometh more than mortal help. 

To be poor need not mean to be abject; 
nor need it mean to be pinched and starved 



2.62 ^vcfCktx %ViXit%. 

in spirit. The Son of the King has royal 
blood in his veins, and its needs must show 
itself; in sharing his little with those that 
have less; in gentle courtesies and tender 
forbearances. How is any poverty going to 
affect the soul, if a man is born with that 
sort of royal blood in his veins? Don't think 
that I mean to say that a man with an in- 
adequate income, or a poor woman with a 
back-load of drudgeries, is going to pre- 
serve perpetual affability and eternal sweet- 
ness of spirit. 

Was there ever a summer that did not car- 
ry a sheath of dark days in its bosom? Who 
would appreciate June if there were no 
March? Poverty will fling a shadow over 
the soul, and render many homes so dark 
and gruesome, that it is as impossible for 
that soul to blossom out into amiable 
speeches and sunny actions, as for a rose 
to unfold its petals out of time, but, thank 
God, we judge of summer by the average, 
not by the special spells of weather. If at 
the end we can speak of gathered flowers 
and garnered harvests, we know that the 
season, on the whole, has been a success, 
no matter how many rainy, grumbly days 
there may have been. Did you ever thank 



^mhtx (flints. 263 

God for that little clause, "as much as is 
possible?" He knew quite well it was im- 
possible to live forever at peace with men 
and circumstances. Can a bird sing all the 
time? It is to our credit, my dear, if we 
foot up a fair average of sunshine and song 
by and by when the season is over and 
ended. So I say that it is not in the power 
of poverty to blast a life that carries the 
royal blood in its veins. If you are a child 
of heaven, you cannot keep the heritage of 
heaven out of your heart, any more than 
the year can forego its four weeks of June. 
It is not in the power of old clothes and 
scrimpy food, and low ceilings to render 
you forgetful of the many mansions that are 
awaiting you, and the ''white robes" and the 
sparkling crown, when these few brief years 
of life in an alien land are forgotten. 

Only keep your thoughts on what is com- 
ing, and the discomforts of earthly depriva- 
tion and want will pass over you as shadows 
pass over the depths of the sea, or darkness 
settles upon a garden full of fragrant-hearted 
roses. 

But some of us have other and greater 
trials than poverty brings. We are sick, and 
the members that God intended to be like 



264 ^mhzx flints. 

the strong chords of a perfect harp, are all 
untuned by the hand of pain, so that life is 
only a jangle, of discordant notes instead of 
a serene and joyful psalm. That is hard to 
bear. No harder lot was ever laid on man 
since Eden cast its first white blossom at 
the feet of Israel. But stop and think about 
it a minute. To be sure you are "shut in," 
but what does it mean to be shut in? It 
means to be folded like a sick lamb out of 
the cold and the winter storm. It means to 
be hid in a pavilion where no flying arrow 
can pierce your heart, and no sharp-shoot- 
ing temptation can lay you low. Your days 
are spent within a cloister where dark-robed 
pain presides, but where the air is full of 
prayerful peace rather than of stinging care 
and bristling wrong doing. The Lord has 
been very good to you in that He has kept 
you away from those defilements which 
might have trailed the white fabric of your 
soul in the dust of evil desire and weakly 
yielded wrong. This pain has been your 
savior. Without it who knows how far you 
might have wandered from the bosom of 
God wherein you now lie Hke a little child. 
And no earthly suffering can endure very 
long. It may seem an endless time now, 



^mhi^x ^XinU* 265 

but looking back from the golden uplands 
of heaven, what a very little gap among the 
eternal hills this "valley of tears" shall make. 
Believe me, the longest life of pain shall 
seem of small consequence, when '^Christ 
Himself shall stoop at last to gather your 
lifers rose, and smile away your mortal to 
divine." The tenderest angel sent to draw 
our earth-born thoughts toward heaven may 
wear the badge of pain, and looking back 
upon our lot at last, it may be very easy to 
say, '^It was the best." 

Are you tormented by faithless friends, 
and broken constancies? Does it seem to 
you that nobody in all the world had so 
much to bear from the smiting hand of in- 
justice and the carking tooth of ingratitude? 

A traveler passing through a foreign 
country puts up at a wayside inn. The beds 
are hard, the service poor, the fees exor- 
bitant, but he carries in his bosom a letter 
that bids him press on, and come home. 
Does he sorrow much over the discomforts 
of the inn or the cupidity of its retainers? 
Why! bless your heart, to-morrow he is go- 
ing home, and everything will be straight- 
ened out there. 

Were your worst betrayals of trust ever 



so bad as those that befell a better than you, 
when even Peter denied Him? Could the 
accumulated injustice of the world match 
the single injustice of Pilate's charge? Was 
desertion so absolute ever meted to a human 
soul as that garden's lonely watcher knew 
when even God seemed to have gone away 
and left the pitying heavens untenanted? 
And yet you and I cover our faces with our 
hands and mourn the pitiful betrayals and 
injustices of our lot, while we have it in our 
power to count this risen King over every 
possible sorrow our friend? Having tasted 
the sting of every sorrow, and sounded the 
plummet of ingratitude and despair, He 
stands over against each revelation of hu- 
man grief with divine healing in His hands 
for all our bruises and all our wounds. 

There is nothing, then, not poverty nor 
want, nor pain nor grief, nor death itself, 
that can keep us out of the heritage of sure- 
coming joy if we bear in our bosom the 
jewel of a contented mind, and in our soul 
an unwavering trust in the tenderness of the 
All-Loving One. 



^mlij^x miuU. 267 



CHAPTER VI. 

I read once in a quaint little book, of a 
man whose life was embittered by the her- 
itage of a curious pair of spectacles left him 
by his grandfather. Through them, he was 
forced to view the world and the people 
within it, as they in reality were, and not as 
they seemed. All shams resolved them- 
selves into original nothingness before him, 
and the great tanglement of life unwound 
itself in every gleam of his wonderful 
s^lasses. 

The poor old fellow didn^t have a very 
blissful time of it, and I think when the great 
day dawned that carried him and his spec- 
tacles out of the world, he was glad to go. 
But I should like to borrow his glasses a lit- " 
tie while for all that. So many things get 
mixed up here, like a gardener's collection 
of seeds with the labels all wrong; here a 
package of garden pinks labeled wild onions, 
or a bunch of carrots marked "lily bulbs." 

Sitting in my office window to-day, with 
people flocking by, like sea gulls before a 



268 Ji^nxtrjev ^XitxtS. 

storm, what strange sights I could see had I 
but old Titbottom's spectacles astride my 
nose. Here comes a woman with a face like 
a Madonna. "How sw^eet," "how pure/^ 
"how faultless," cries the world. I look, and 
lo; a shaft of ice, a slab of stone, a marble 
heart. 

Here comes another whom the world calls 
trifling, giddy, without earnest purpose or 
steady aim. I look, and see a singing foun- 
tain sparkling in the sun, a rivulet of moun- 
tain water, making the earth green with 
its own ministration of joy. Here comes 
a correct specimen of what all the world 
holds to be above reproach. Her eyelids 
droop over eyes that are like hooded nuns 
ever at prayer, so devout and concentrated 
their glances. Her character is a white 
cloak which the idle fingers of gossip have 
never sought to hold aside. I look, and lo ; 
a Magdalen unrepentant. A snake lies 
curled amid the withered lilies of her heart. 
Here comes a poorly dressed, shabby girl. 
Surely her beauty has blighted the white- 
ness of its own innocence, as the canker may 
eat the heart of the rose that nourishes it. 
You fling an idle word of scorn as she goes 
by, and have no doubt but that she is hardly 



Jinxljje:c (flints, 269 

worth your pity. I look, and behold ; a snow- 
flake settling down through leaden skies, 
born of Heaven. Those men, clean-palmed 
and of faultless attire, whom mothers 
court for their innocent daughters, and with 
whose names Dame Grundy heads her hst 
of irreproachables ; my glasses show them 
to be rude swine ; or fruit dead and decayed 
at core. The pompous man, swelling like 
a spring freshet with his own importance, 
is but a crackling bit of paper, marked with 
higher or lower bank value. I see wives 
clinging to and surrounding with beautiful 
devotion, mere pork tubs and money tills. 
I see husbands cherishing in their bosoms, 
bits of rumpled lace, or soiled fabrics, or arti- 
ficial flowers. And then, perhaps, old lady, 
I turn the glasses on myself, and what I see 
makes me more charitable towards others, 
more loving, and less critical. 

As long as Titbottom took his spectacles 
with him when he died, and remembering 
that their possession only embittered his 
heart and made a cynic of him, let us try, 
good people, to substitute for them a chari- 
ty which shall seek to cover rather than ex- 
pose the faults and counterfeits of our neigh- 
bors. All the tears and deplorements in 



270 ^ttthj^TC (flints. 

the world won't turn a field of Canada 
thistles into a rose garden. But a flower 
seed, dropped wherever we can, may make 
an oasis now and then to brighten up the 
wilderness. 



>^< 



I have just a word to say to-day about 
what big fellows owe to ^'little ones" — of 
what fair play means and how to keep the 
heaven-lighted fire of chivalry aglow in the 
breast. Ridicule is the coward's weapon. 
The big boy who will throw stones at a rab- 
bit is a good prototype of the man or the 
woman who ridicules the peculiarities or the 
physical defects of a fellow creature. You 
owe tenderness and the loan of the mantle of 
concealment to anyone with whom you may 
be thrown whose eccentricities or personal 
blemishes may make him or her the object 
of curious regard. 

3|C ^ 9|C 3jC 9)C 

The unrepressed smile or the whipcord 
word may stab deeper than any knife, and 



^mbj^x (flints. 2yi 

make a wound that will bleed forever. 
Young girls are the sweetest things in the 
world outside the realm of birds and blos- 
soms, and yet they often do the crudest 
things. Why, my dear, your very beauty 
and winsomeness obHge you to be consid- 
erate of those whom nature has made less 
fair and sweet. ''Noblesse oblige" is not 
more binding than this law that compels you 
to be tenderly thoughtful of these "little 
ones" whom you constantly hurt. ' A 
thoughtless school girl is often more cruel 
than the Caesars, and a rollicky school boy 
out-Neros Nero in his reckless disregard of 
a schoolmate's sensibilities. 

•if. :3f. if. 1^ if 

Give a stupid person the benefit of a 
doubt. We cannot all roar like lions, and 
yet in the great orchestra of nature the katy- 
did has its place as well as the king of 
beasts. Because some ^'little ones" sit gog- 
gle-eyed and silent in the midst of such fine 
roaring, do not doubt but what, when their 
opportunity comes, they can chirp like good 
fellows. Give them a chance, I say, and 



even then, if they won't take it, don't call 
them uninteresting and stupid. Katydids 
were not meant to sing by lamplight and in 
crowds. When the noise lulls and the, 
lights are out their disputations begin, and 
last when sweeter singers are locked in 
slumber. In company, then, don't place all 
the silent people with fools ; yield them the 
deference due to those who merely wait 
their opportunity. 

Bashful people are claimants for chivalry. 
When you can quietly step to the rescue of 
a bashful person do so. Perhaps you will 
know some day what a sunburst of blessings 
went from that rescued heart in your be- 
half. And, I can tell you, no smallest deed 
of service ever went unblessed, any more 
than the sun shines in April without creat- 
ing a blossom. 



Avoid unkind criticism. If a life be pure, 
let all its little oddities alone. If you are 
convinced that some not over-bright young 
man is trying to live a clean life in the world 
and make an honest record, don't pick him 



^mhtx Cl^Iiuts. 273 

to pieces, girls, in your after-party talks. A 
pure man is sometimes better than a clever 
man, and truth and honor make a better 
showing than wit. 



Make your aim in the world to leave 
happy hearts in your wake, as the woman 
spoken of in the play of "Clio" made the 
"grain a little greener for her footfall pass- 
ing by." Strive not so much to be admired 
as to be loved, and seek that love in shy 
places among the little ones of earth. 



«®« 



The other morning I was standing in 
front of a looking-glass. It was a matter 
of necessity rather than of pleasure, and as 
I sought to tie the bow of my collar-ribbon 
I gazed with something of contempt at my 
own reflection. But while I gazed, a mys- 
terious feeling of terror took possession of 
me, so that, if I had not turned away, I 
think I should have gone mad. Whence 
came the phantom that looked into my eye 
from the depth of that mirror? Whither 



274 J^mirjev (Mints, 

was it going? What was it? How long 
would it tarry? It was all that I should 
ever know of the personality that signs my 
autograph, loves my friends and despises 
my enemies. If I had a million dollars to 
pay for the chance, I could never come any 
nearer than this to looking into the eyes 
that window the perplexing Ego that is my 
soul. I might gaze forever into the depths 
of these reflected orbs, but what are they? 
Shadows born of the union of quicksilver 
and crystal, which a blow would shatter. 
This moment the something called "I" 
stands here and confronts me, but where 
will it be to-morrow, next year, or when 
eternitv, never begun and forever unending, 
is a billion ages on its course? Before this 
present day's completed span is run, it may 
exist no longer in all the spaces of the senti- 
ent earth ; within a week it may be laid away 
under the parched turf; as the years drift 
by it shall be as completely forgotten as the 
petals of Sappho's rose. Meantime where 
will this inexplicable phantom which con- 
fronts me from those eyes in the looking- 
glass be gone? They can never bury it, 
however deep they dig its grave. Will it 
slip away, like a ray of light, to mirror itself, 



I^mbxv (flints. 275 

perhaps, within the translucent tide of eter- 
nal life, or lose itself with other sun- 
sparkles in the fine radiance of illimitable 
ether. 

Once upon a time it came to pass that 
there wandered through a great city a 
woman who was wasted and worn with the 
carrying of many bundles. 

And the rain beat upon that woman so 
that she tottered like another Lear, the sport 
of scornful elements. 

And the umbrella, which a too previous 
friend had palmed of¥ upon her, flapped to 
and fro in the wind like a sail which no wind 
filleth. 

And by reason of its unmanageableness 
it came to pass that the passage of the 
woman through the crowded streets was a 
menace to those that walked before and 
after her. 

And many lifted up the voice ifi protest, 
crying: "Verily it cannot be that a woman 
carrieth an umbrella so but what she goug- 
eth out the eyes and lifteth on high the hat- 
brim of the sons of men that walk to and fro 
upon the highways." 



2^6 ^rahzx (flints. 

And it came to pass that the woman, be- 
ing possessed of a spirit of wrath by reason 
of the umbrella, and likewise of many dra- 
peries and countless bundles, cast the um- 
brella from her and strode forward unpro- 
tected beneath the down-pouring heavens. 

Now a certain cabman (one who drove a 
vehicle called a hansom), being idle, and like 
a beast of prey seeking one whom he might 
devour, accosted the woman, saying but one 
word, namely, "cab?' 

And the one word he uttered was unac- 
companied by any sign whereby the woman 
might have taken alarm unto herself and so 
escaped the destiny that awaited her. 

Now, the woman being worn and wasted, 
and stricken with sudden years, so that she 
would have fallen, replied unto the man, say- 
ing, "Yea, verily." 

And she entered the cab, she and the bun- 
dles fate had cast upon her. 

Then the cab horse, being possessed of 
many demons, stood upon its hind legs and 
smote the air with joy that he and his mas- 
ter had found a victim. 

And it came to pass that the passage of 
that cab through the streets was like the 
way a hose-cart cleaveth when the alarm of 



^mhi^x (founts. 277 

fire is in the air, or like the track of a ball 
that flyeth from a prize pitcher's hand, or 
like the flight of a strong eagle to the sun. 

And the woman was cast to and fro upon 
the seat like a pea in a wind-shaken pod. 

And she cried aloud, but in the tumult of 
her advance her voice was like the wailing 
of a sorrowful babe. 

And suddenly the horse fell, and the 
woman was cast forth upon the watery pave- 
ment, she and the wrecked bundles she bore 
with her. 

And the cabman, being but little hurt, as- 
sisted his horse to its feet, and would have 
replaced his victim in her seat. 

But, being gifted with the gift of ready 
speech, the woman confronted him, saying: 

''Behold, I have vowed many vows and 
uttered unto myself many resolves, yet when 
my memory slept I have forgotten those 
vows and entered thy cab. 

"Now hear me while I say that though 
the heavens pour boihng water, and the 
pavements run flaming fire, I, nor the gene- 
ration of my name that come after me, nor 
the handmaid who reigneth in my kitchen, 
nor the dog who devastateth the wardrobe 
of my children — nay, not even the stranger 



278 ^mhzx (Mints. 

who asketh my command, shall ride from 
thenceforth even forever within thy terrible 
cabs. 

"Go to, thou man of guile ; thou and the 
horse that Satan furnished thee. 

"I will die, the good Lord willing, in my 
bed, when the fullness of my time draweth 
nigh, but thou and thy two-wheeled trap of 
death shall know me no more forever." 

And the man of the cab went his way, 
drawn mightily by the horse possessed of 
many demons. 

And the woman likewise went her way, 
still grasping to her aching breast her many 
bundles. 

And it came to pass that the ways of the 
cabman and of the woman lay far apart from 
that time forth forever, and will never again 
be the same as long as the woman knoweth 
herself. 

If there is a quality in this world, whicn, 
like material gold is bound to be counter- 
feited, and its spurious imitation palmed off 
for the genuine, it is enthusiasm. What the 
breeze is to sultry summer weather, or what 



^mhtx i&Xint&. 279 

sunshine is to the growing world, such is 
enthusiasm to any nature. Like the fiz of 
a bottle of poor beer or the combustion of 
a wet fire-cracker, such is all mere gush. 
The crackling of thorns under a pot, or the 
twitter of tomtits, is not more senseless. 
Many good people are afraid to express the 
half of what they feel, for fear of being 
ranked with the gusher. Never fear! The 
difference between the spurious and the 
true is easily detected. Speech takes unto 
itself the happy medium of glowing eyes and 
flushed cheeks when the heart is really 
moved. But when the emotion is only as- 
sumed, speech mounts stilts and is apt to 
tumble. 

Shall we briefly photograph the gushing 
girl of to-day? She usually cultivates sim- 
plicity, and an aesthetic style. Blue is her 
favorite color, and she afifects white muslin 
and rosebuds. A child-like smile completes 
her make-up. 

Brown, a rising journalist, is often in her 
company, and to him she breathes an appre- 
ciation of his Swinburnesh verse that is rap- 
ture to the young man's soul. "Ah, dear, 
dear, friend," she will say to him, "there 
was that in your poem to-day that breathed 



28o ^mhtx (HXttxts* 

over my soul like a strong wind out of para- 
dise. How can I thank you? Sometimes I 
fear," here she struggles with a blush, "that 
such a mere babe as I, in worldly knowl- 
edge — " here young Periwinkle saunters by 
and casually observes: 

"Fine sunset to-night. Did you notice it, 
Miss GHnt?" 

"Oh, indeed, yes," she warbles; "was it 
not just heavenly? Such sweet tints, and 
ravishing distances! Oh, Mr. Periwinkle, I 
often long, when looking upon such deli- 
cious sunsets'' — here the hostess interrupts: 

"Miss Glint, will you sing for us?" 

"Please excuse me. Save to warble a few 
wild notes at eventide for pa, I never sing. 
But if you insist, I will do my tiny, unpre- 
tending best!" 

So she carols snatches of "Love's Young 
Dream," with emotion and perverted ac- 
cent. 

As a fellow traveler the gushing girl is 
worse than mosquitoes. She stands before 
Niagara with a simpering shout of — "Ain't 
it lovely?" 

She greets Yosemite with, "Ain't it 
sweet?" She is boosted up Mount Blanc, 
and gasps, "Ain't it splendid?" She sits 



^mhtx CflXiuts, 281 

down to a supper of hot flap-jacks, and 
cries, "Ain't they magnificent!" A moun- 
tain, a waterfall, and a pancake, alike, arouse 
her rapture. A mouse will throw her into 
convulsions, so will a rattlesnake, so would 
Gabriel's trumpet. She keeps a diary, 
wherein she rhapsodizes and gurgles like a 
dying hen. Take a sample extract: 

"Visited Rosehill, to-day. Wore my 
violet suit. Oh, the sad sorrow of this sug- 
gestive spot! Soon shall I rest beneath 
these daisies! Oh, W. M., shall we under- 
stand each other's intense, but dumb for- 
bearance, in the Heaven land !" (Tear drops 
and dashes !) An unfailing characteristic of 
the gushing girl is her assurance that no- 
body understands her. 

She walks through life in a Sahara of her 
own making. She often sends poems to the 
flint-hearted editors, scattered through the 
land, and when they return them with a nice 
little printed apology for so doing, she 
weeps, but does not wonder. How^ could a 
horrid man have sympathy with the Molmn 
qualities of her transcendental soul ! 

As she advances in years she grows worse. 
We can bear with gushing in a girl, but there 
should be a special clause inserted in the 



282 Jtmtrjev (flints. 

litany — "Good Lord, deliver us from gush- 
ing old women." At forty-nine we find her 
rampant in the field of the Woman Suf- 
ragist Crusade. She is shrill and denuncia- 
tory in her comments upon tTie "horrid 
men," and trips airily down the warpath that 
leads to his total extermination. Did you 
not read, the other day, an extract from her 
speech in Washington, "I feel like a dove 
ready for battle ! A starbeam in the arena of 
bloodshed!" 

Thus in the ever increasing tide of disap- 
pointed, crabbed and foolish women, the 
gushing girl is swept away. She appears 
at the surface now and then, voluble, fran- 
tic; but nobody Hstens. And so, farewell 
thou tropic-souled and trippy tongued sis- 
ter! R. I. P. 

But I pray you, good people, take heed, 
lest you mar the beauty of your enjoyment 
of life, by confounding this gush with heart- 
felt enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, in any nature, 
is the dew that keeps alive the heart's fresh- 
ness and bloom. To unnecessarily restrain 
it, is like stripping the blossoms of¥ the trees 
and leaving nothing but firm little balls of 
immature fruit. 

The rosy petals of the blossom are all 



^mhzx (Mints, 283 

prodigal; there is no utility to them — but 
where would the flush be on May's fair 
cheek, or the coronet on June's bright brow, 
without them? 

Neither imagine, because you are grow- 
ing old, that you must fold away the quick 
appreciations and impulses of youth with 
your own youthful garments. Don't think, 
because you are a man of business, or a se- 
date matron, that enthusiasm is out of char- 
acter. There never was a forest so dark, 
or an autumn so late, that the sunshine 
could not filter through and change the 
gloom to vague, sweet twilight. There 
should never be a heart grow too worldly or 
too old, to forget to worship beauty and 
loveliness wherever found, whether in the 
evanescent bloom of sunset cloud, or in the 
spirit charm of a perfect character. 



I am inclined to think that I envy "Little 
Tommy Tucker" above all other heroes of 
juvenile lore. What a splendid time Tom 
had! No bars of conventional restraint to 
keep him out of the clover. No Prince Al- 
bert coats and society manners. No tight 



284 ^mhi^x stints. 

boots, higli collars, or soft corns. If Tom 
took It into his happy-go-lucky head to 
travel, away he went with nobody nigh to 
hinder. He never had to bother about bag- 
gage checks, lower berths and porters' fees. 
His trunk never went astray, his shirt- 
bosoms were never squeezed in the packing, 
his toothbrush never was left behind and 
his robe de nuit never got covered with 
shoe blacking. All he had to do when he 
became hungry was to take a troche and go 
out and sing a song in the twilight until 
some tender heart came along and provided 
him with a supper fit for the young gods. 
For tell me, please, if any menu prepared by 
a French chef and served in seventeen 
courses ever matched the good, sweet bread 
and butter of our childhood's days. Terra- 
pin is good, and the oysters washed down 
with plenty of champagne is good, ices and 
creams and all sorts of savory confections 
are good, but with one and all troop those 
handmaids of death — apoplexy, gout, acute 
dyspepsia and a softened brain. It is not by 
disasters of wind, or wreck, or tide that men 
flock ,fastest to the doom of the grave, but 
simple overeating carries them thither at 
the rate of 10,000 a day. Lightning strikes 



^mJ^tx mints. 285 

one man where hot pastry and spiced meat 
kills twenty. I would rather take my chance 
at another Gettysburg than come in daily 
range of a mince pie. 



So, Tommy Tucker, my boy, I would like 
nothing better than to join you in your 
vagabond career this very day. For I am 
sick of well-behaved Jack Horners and 
their plums of plenty; I am sick of fuss and 
tired of feathers. I long to be a sun- 
bonneted woman and live on the edge of a 
prairie, where I can hear the meadow-larks 
sing. I want to forget the clang of cables 
and rejoice in the whippoorwill's lament and 
the cricket's din instead. I want to be a 
cowboy and tent on a thousand-acre ranch. 
I want to become utterly oblivious to that 
part of life devoted to money-getting and 
become a sublimated being who shall know 
no excitement greater than driving home 
the cows and hunting hens' nests ; no dissi- 
pations deeper than drinking buttermilk, 
and no diet richer than old-fashioned bread 
and butter, served in a clean kitchen off a 
deal table that is whiter than snow. When 
I shall come to that estate of primitive and 



286 ^mhj^x flints. 

healthful simpHcity, perhaps I shall find 
you, Tom, bare-footed and homespun clad, 
waiting to join hands in a race for the sup- 
per, earned without a heartache and paid 
for with a song. 

There is another character in Mother 
Goose lore which is almost as great a fa- 
vorite with me as young Tucker. In old 
Mother Hubbard my heart has always 
found delight, first for her directness and 
next for her exclusiveness. Roundabout 
people are tiresome. They are like carpen- 
ters who spend all day in driving one shin- 
gle-nail. A direct stroke hits the nail on the 
head at once. Did you ever see a hen cross 
a garden? Is there a flake of dirt within 
six feet of her track which she does not 
scratch for the worm that isn't there? Ten 
to one it is right under her nose, while she 
travels all around Robin Hood's barn to get 
it. Did you ever see our neighbor's wife 
try to get out of the room after she has said 
good-night and it was time for her to go? 
She keeps her asthmatic husband in a 
draught fully ten minutes, and forces you to 
remain standing as long, although your 
back aches and your feet burn like hot bis- 
cuit from a hard day's work, all because she 



J^mlrjeic (Itittts. 287 

hasn't Mother Hubbard's splendid gift of 
directness and straight-about-edness. Once 
having made up their mind to do a thing, 
I love to see people do it. When the old 
dame started for her cupboard she went! 
She didn't go half way and then turn back 
to say a last word. She didn't take in the li- 
brary or loiter in the music-room. She 
thought cupboard, and she accomplished 
cupboard. She might have said to her- 
self, "I really must look into that cupboard 
some time to-day," and then sat down with 
a novel, or practiced over a new piece, and 
forgotten all about it, to the detriment of a 
too confiding dog. 



I know a girl, and I am willing to bet a 
cooky that you know another, who will form 
a fine set of resolutions for the conduct of 
the day and never carry one of them out. 
For instance she will say, "Now if I live I 
will face the skirt of my worn dress this 
very hour;" or, "I will surely write that let- 
ter to-day;" or, "providence permitting, I 
will not go to sleep to-night until I have 
sewed on my dear father's coat button." She 
means well, but through lack of that 



288 ^mhzx Mints, 

straightforward directness that character- 
ized Old Mother Hubbard she allows her- 
self to be side-tracked by some trivial cir- 
cumstance, and her resolutions come to 
naught. Let me say one thing to you, girls, 
and remember I love you all the time I am 
saying it; after you have made up your 
mind to do a thing, go ahead and do it, 
though temptation to take another track be- 
set you behind and before. Let it be said of 
you "she went!" rather than "she tarried!" 
After the duty is accomplished, then read 
your record and sing your song. 

***** 

Another trait I admire in Mother Hub- 
bard as portrayed in the nursery jingle is 
her exclusiveness. She kept something 
locked up. It was only a bone, but she kept 
it in a closet. She didn't ley it out on the 
kitchen table to advertise her poverty. She 
had the delicacy to keep her affairs to her- 
self. Had she wrapped her bone in a paper 
and laid it in a corner ten to one the neigh- 
bors would have hauled her over the coals 
for untidy ways. Bones draw mice, even 
when kept in cupboards, but mice under 
lock and key are not so trying to the nerves 



^mhj^x (Mints. 289 

and don't scatter so much rubbish as mice 
that roam at large. To be sure the poor old 
lady didn't find the bone when she got there, 
but that wasn't her fault. She had put it 
there, and had perfect faith that she should 
find it when with promptness and dispatch 
she went to her cupboard. Learn of the 
grand old dame to keep something set apart, 
hidden, as it were, from busybodies and gos- 
sips. It is all very delightful to be frank and 
free, to bear the reputation of being hail- 
fellow well met with everybody who comes 
along. But there is such a thing as cheap- 
ening ourselves by our laxity of tongue and 
manners. The good book says, "Love thy 
neighbor as thyself," but it doesn't say, "Tell 
thy neighbor all that thou knowest." Of 
the two, perhaps the overconfiding fellow 
is the best comrade, but the fellow who 
knows enough to keep an occasional bone 
in the closet leaves the best record behind 
him, when the glamor of an evanescent wit 
and the fascination of a garrulous tongue 
are forgotten. This is an age of excessive 
and rampant equality. 

There is a hodge-podge about things in 
general that reminds one of Pennsylvania 
scrapple — everything under the sun mingled 



290 ^mhzTC ^titxts. 

in one batch of dough and baked in one 
dish. There are some of us who don't like 
it. We do not relish contiguities that are 
quite so close and a shoulder to shoulder 
march with the commonplace and the alike. 
One thing remains for us to do — keep some 
of our bones under lock and key. Let us be 
able to say to ourselves, ''Here is this great 
table d'hote served on the co-operation plan. 
Here I must sit and nibble crusts with Tom, 
Dick and Harry, whether I like or not, but 
thank goodness there is a bone m my cup- 
board for me and my dog alone. I would 
rather pick it by myself, with faithful Tray 
for company, than eat planked shad in pub- 
lic with the greedy masses." 

lie ^ :)( ^ :«: 

There is one more heroine of Mother 
Goose fiction to which I would call your at- 
tention. Her name is unchronicled, but her 
type is multiform. To classify her under a 
personal nomenclature would be like calling 
the grasshopper by name out of a Kansas 
wheatfield. All that the rhyme records of 
her is an unappeasable appetite and an un- 
conquerable restlessness. She fed upon 
everything that comes within the broad 



^tixhtx stints. 291 

scope of "victuals and drink" and yet "could 
never keep quiet." When I see large women 
with flabby chins and infinite abdominal 
girth I know that they are no relation by 
, either blood or brain to the restless one of 
my theme. She was thin and nothing that 
she ate went to flesh. She might have con- 
sumed custard by the ton ^nd cream by the 
gallon, yet would she have been the slender- 
est blade of mortality that ever flashed from 
its scabbard. She had large haunting eyes, 
and they were full of somber gleam, like a 
lake overbrooded by a cloud-swept moon. 
She had a something within her that beat 
her frail body as an untamed eagle beats its 
bars, and do you suppose "goodies" ever yet 
satisfied eagles when they wanted to fly? 
There is a divinely given restlessness that 
proves our breed — thank God if you have it, 
although it may be uncomfortable. The 
turkey strutting in the barnyard, and ap- 
peasing every aspiration with corn, is a 
vastly more enjoyable bird, both alive and 
in the pot, than the eagle that soars, and 
screams, and defies the lightning from his 
storm-rocked eyrie, but the full culmination 
of all life is not to be found in the dinner- 
pot, nor scratched out of a compost heap. 



292 ^nxJitx flints. 

I would rather be the unquiet, brainy little 
woman, whom "goodies" failed to soothe, 
even if I went down to my grave torn and 
ragged with life's inadequacy, than be the 
fat, sleepy, easy-going woman I meet from 
day to day in restaurants, upon whom a 
chicken fry acts like one of King David's 
psalms and whose capacity is bounded by 
victuals and drink. 

Get up and smite the cymbals, then, if you 
are lean and hollow-eyed and sullen; it is a 
sign that you are going to be filled out some 
day with something better than beans and 
beer and more soothing than cake and flum- 
mery. 

The fire had burned down to a handful of 
smoldering embers, weird shadows flickered 
now and then across the rude w^alls, and 
without, an icy rain was falling drearily. 
Now and then a shrill blast, like the cry of 
some one in distress sounded through the 
streets and died away in hoarse and fitful 
sobbings. Within the room sat one who 
was bent with toil, and old before her time 
with care. The scanty locks drawn tightly 
back disclosed a brow that was lined with 



^mhj^x (Stints. 293 

deep furrows, and underneath, in their cav- 
ernous sockets, burned ruthlessly a pair of 
dark, bright eyes. 

About her shoulders was drawn the rem- 
nant of a faded shawl, and now and then a 
rattling cough shook her slight form convul- 
sively. She was steadily working at a pile 
of unfinished shirts that lay like snow 
drifts all about the dreary room. Her hands 
shook like those of a paralytic, and inter- 
posed betweeen the lamp, they would 
scarcely more hinder the passage of the 
light, than a withered rose. Suddenly she 
dropped her work and her head fell forward 
in what seemed an irresistible stupor of 
sleep. Then it was that there came a 
strange and clanking tread up the outer 
stair, like the jar of many wheels, and the 
slight door shook as a heavy body fell 
against it. 

''Who is it?" cried the woman, starting 
from her sleep. 

"The sewing woman's enemy! Open to 
the spirit of the sewing machine," came the 
answer, like the click of a rattling shuttle. 

**But I did not know you for an enemy. 
I thought the sewing machine was our 
friend and abettor rather than our foe," re- 



294 ^mhzx flints. 

plied the woman as she undid the door and 
gave entrance to a strange figure, with a 
head Hke a revolving wheel and the feet of a 
dancing treadle. Tramp, click, roll, over the 
floor came the object, and flinging aside the 
pile of shirts, as a snow shovel attacks a 
drift, it settled itself noisily by the woman's 
chair. 

"Yes," it said whirrily, "behold in me the 
friend that has baffled your efforts to make a 
living; that has devoured your freshness 
and your bloom, as the dragon once de- 
voured the flower of maidenhood and devas- 
tated the land. I am the stomachless worker 
that needs not rest. I am the worker 
wrought of steel and without sensibilities 
or nerves; that needs no recreation. Be- 
cause I can do five times your work with no 
sort of keep or hire. I have usurped your 
needle and the dainty craft that once made 
your skill desirable. When manufacturers 
can make with me a dozen shirts with only 
one pair of tired feet to set me flying, and 
one pair of dim and heavy eyes like yours to 
keep me straight, in the time it took you to 
make one, think you they can keep up your 
prices or give you anything like a profit on 
your work?" 



Jimirjev CHXiuts. 295 

"I never thought of it before," said the 
woman, "but now I see you speak the truth. 
But what can be done to remedy it all? Can 
nothing re-instate the old methods, and give 
us proper pay again for our hard and wear- 
isome work? Look at this coarse shirt;" . 
holding up a workman's woolen garment, as 
she spoke; "for the making of this I get 
eight cents, and for a finer one never more 
than twenty." 

"Nothing can be done to retard the march 
of progress," answered the Sewing Machine, 
and as he spoke, his belt-band broke with 
suppressed emotion; "this is an age of ad- 
vancement, of patents, of scientific develop- 
ment ; and we cannot stay the onward sweep 
of the world's growth. The harvester suf- 
fers with you, from the machine that takes 
the toil of twenty men, and leaves nineteen 
idle in the field ; the trades of every kind are 
finding machines to do man's work, and of 
course with ten thousand hands left idle, it 
is hard to find work for them to do. It took 
a dozen men a week once, with cradle and 
scythe, and rake to clean up a harvest field; 
and those men were always at work and 
never thought of strikes or shortened hours. 
Now a combination machine tears through 



296 ^mhi^x flints. 

a field and does the twelve men's work in an 
afternoon. The men made idle, grow rest- 
less, and ferment disturbance, as cider stand- 
ing still makes vinegar. But I have stayed 
too long. The hour strikes that calls back 
our spirits to the materialism that we serve. 
But before I go, one word. Let women 
tone down their frantic zest for bargains; 
put less work on a dollar nightgown, and let 
some of the profit go to the toiling hands 
that tucked and trimmed and rufifled it, as 
well as to the merchant who sells it, and 
you will not be so pinched and worn and 
ground to a keen edge by poverty. While 
competition runs a neck-to-neck race with 
avaricious greedy buyers there is not much 
left to keep the sewing woman from starv- 
ing!" 

A rumble, a grumble, and a roll, and the 
poor woman rubbed her sleepy eyes. She 
was alone ! 



We all of us know that the solution to the 
great domestic-service problem lies through 
the straight road of simplification. When 
we retrench our requirements according to 
the limit of our simplest needs we shall 



^mJ>j^x flints. 297 

begin to see a solution to much that per- 
plexes us in the present aspect of things. 
Abolish the dozen superfluous dishes and 
depend upon the essential one, and one part 
, of domestic service is lightened 50 per cent. 
It is a half day's work to wash the dishes 
after a pretentious modern dinner. Too 
many courses, too many fancy pieces, too 
much style has made of what should be an 
ofifhand chore, an ordeal of skilled labor. 
Thanksgiving dinner used to taste better in 
the old days when everything was served in 
one course and there was no dainty bread 
and butter bric-a-brac, bone plates and in- 
dividual pieces for everything served, than 
it does now when too much style hampers 
the fun and crazes the serving woman. 
Throw out the nonessentials everywhere 
and retain only essentials. Lighten the 
work and make household duties what they 
ought to be, an easy task rather than an 
unending drudgery. 

I do not mean to be understood even as 
saying that pretty things are nonessentials. 
The more attractive you make life the 
easier it runs, but prettiness and preten- 
sion are two different things. I can make 
my table as pretty with a bunch of clover 



298 ^mhzx CItittts. 

in a 50-cent vase or a plume of ferns in a 
bowl as my neighbor can with jack roses at 
$5 a dozen in a cut glass epergne, the cost 
of which would have kept a hungry family 
in bread for a month. I can serve as palat- 
able a company lunch of biscuits and honey 
and foamy milk, with a bit of fruit and a 
toss up of feathery cake or cream and have 
fewer dishes for the girl to wash and fewer 
bills for myself to pay, than the harassed 
hostess does who employs a caterer and 
uses a dozen plates and spoons and glasses 
where one-quarter the number would suf- 
fice. What rich woman is going to start 
this business of simplifying? It needs 
some one with wealth and prominent social 
standing to pioneer the good work. Some- 
body told me not long ago of a wealthy 
leader in society who kept up a distinct 
establishment for her servants. She gave 
them a parlor, a piano and a library. There 
is a good place to begin to simplify. Go 
back to old-fashioned methods of servant- 
hire and give some of the rest of us who 
have to work hard to keep a parlor and a 
piano for ourselves, a chance to keep help. 
Simplify all along the line, from the kitchen 



^mhzx Cgliuts. 299 

to the guest chamber, and usher in a new 
day. 



Hospitality has been so utterly tiansposed 
from its position among the virtues that it 
has come to be something like the discord 
occasioned by playing an F sharp in a C 
scale. It is a source of constant irritation 
both to nerves and sensibilities. We "ex- 
pect" company, nowadays, but never are 
blessed by our friends dropping in upon us 
and taking things as they find them. Blessed 
times when company meant a jollification 
rather than a before-handed battle! When 
the old carry-all rattled in at the side gate 
and all the folks from the farm a dozen miles 
away came over to spend the day. When 
the girls took off their things and helped get 
dinner. When grandma sat and knitted 
worsted socks while she told us how to make 
her kind of cream gravy to serve with crisp 
fried pork. When the men folks went out 
and looked at the crops that were safely 
garnered in the barn, and coming back, 
washed their hands and faces in water that 
sparkled in a bright tin wash basin, and 
dried them on homespun towels, clean and 



300 J^mXrjev ^Xitxts. 

sweet as grass. When we all sat down to- 
gether to a dinner served in one course; 
ate dumplings shortened with cream rather 
than with cottolene, and drank coffee made 
without eggs and the color of an amber 
mouthpiece. When all turned to and helped 
do up the dishes, and sat down afterward 
and listened to the girls play duets on the 
melodeon or speak their exhibition pieces. 
Good old days ! They will never come back 
again. They have been frightened away by 
shoddy style and an ultra civilization of 
progress. 

♦ * * * ♦ 

Now, if we go visiting we are invited and 
we send acceptance on meaningless little 
scraps of conventional party paper. We 
know that our hostess is tiring herself out 
to make ready for us. We go, and are re- 
ceived at the door by a maid who helps us 
lay aside our wraps. And we dare not for 
our lives appear a minute before regulation 
time, as the breach of propriety perpetrated 
by appearing earlier than a quarter before 
I to a I o'clock dinner, is unforgivable. 
We wear regulation gowns and talk mean- 
ingless platitudes to uncongenial people 



^mhi^x (§Xints. 301 

who are invited to meet us. We are con- 
fronted by a dinner which threatens a very 
Banquo ghost of indigestion. We know 
that enough labor has been put into its pro- 
duction, and must still be carried on, in the 
re-establishment of having in pantry and 
kitchen, to run a mill that should supply a 
hundred men. And we also know that the 
husband of our host must work a little 
harder for the time and pinch his under 
forces a little tighter, to pay the bills that 
come pouring in after a swell dinner in 
uppertendom. 

Oh for a new race of heroes! A band of 
invincibles brave enough to face the world's 
scorn and the sneers of pigmy revilers of all 
things broad and best, until the new era of 
right shall usurp the long-time tyranny of 
might. A race of great hearts who shall be 
strong enough, not alone to face lions and 
dominate physical fear; who shall be heroic . 
not only in deeds of daring, such as charg- 
ing mobs and scaling burning walls to save 
property and life, but who shall have the 
courage to maintain their convictions in the 
most insignificant cause of good and 
champion a new idea, however weak and un- 
recognized it may be, in a world that is full 



302 ^mhtx (^Xint%. 

of pretense and pride, and the laughter of 
fools! 



I have often wondered if the fragrance of 
a rose would be as delicious to us if the cen- 
ser whence it emanated were less lovely; if, 
instead of creamy-hued and dawn-tinted 
petals, fine and soft as silk, the rose's cup 
were made of the stiff, unyielding substance 
of the thistle and the burr, or colored with 
the neutral tints that mark the cabbage and 
the cone. 

But whenever such a doubt assails me, up 
pops the little mignonette — that darling of 
my heart, and carries the day for perfume vs. 
beauty. Without a single line of grace, or 
hue of splendor, that homely spiral of dingy 
bloom appeals to the heart as no royal ca- 
melia throned upon its slender stalk has 
ever dared to do. 

You may enclose a blush-rose or a spray 
of orange-blossom in a box, and send it to 
the ends of the earth, and when the wrap- 
pings are removed, although the flower is 
discolored and dead, behold an odor that 
fills the air like a spirit voice! Who thinks 
then of the unsightly and withered pet:/ :, 



^mhj^x flints. 303 

or of the vanished beauty of the flower that 
was once so fair and comely? But pack the 
fairest camelia bud that ever lighted a sum- 
mer dusk with its stainless glow, and send 
it with a message the wide world over, and 
when the box is opened, what have you? 
Simply a dead flower; and your message 
might as well seek utterance from the lips 
of the dead. 

So you see it is the spirit which yields the 
only charm that endures in flowers. And 
what is true of roses is doubly true of girls. 
Mere graceful shape and splendid coloring 
are of small and worthless account, if there 
be no fragrance in the heart. 

Now, girls, you are laughing, and you lay 
your flufify heads of brown, and black and 
gold together, and say, "Oho! for Amber 
and her chestnut! We have heard all this be- 
fore, and nothing is going to convince such 
wise young dames as we, that anything in 
this world compensates for the absence of 
beauty!" If you please, my dears, that is 
just what we are going to talk about, and if, 
when we are through, you tell me that you 
would choose to be an ever so perfect ca- 
melia rather than a dew-wet mignonette or 
a spray of homely lilac growing by a way- 



304 ^mhj^ic ^liuH. 

side fence, then I will go to my room, and 
send for a mason to wall me in ! I don't care 
to live another minute in a world where I 
can't argue down hot-house and scentless 
perfection with natural and heartsome 
sweetness. 

There is, and has been for many an un- 
counted year, a false system in the world 
whereby to grow our human roses, to estab- 
lish the coronation of our bright young 
queens. The mother begins with her two- 
year-old daughter, and teaches her to be 
strictly conventional. All the way up to 
womanhood, in the hands of mother, nurse 
and instructor, the little lass is taught to 
do as others do, to keep step in the march 
of the "great alike," and never dare to do a 
thing, or think a thought, or speak a word 
that can come under what weighs more 
heavily than the sevenfold curse of Rome — 
the ban of unconventionality. A young 
girl is moved to speak a kindly word, or to 
inconvenience herself to serve some shabby 
stranger. Up go mother's, and nurse's, and 
Dame Grundy's hands in horror! What! 
go out of your way, my child, to show that 
old woman a street, or carry an old man's 
basket, or help a tired mother get her chil- 



dren over a crowded crossing! Why, the 
idea is absurdly out of the question. Such a 
line of conduct will make people think you 
queer, and far better be dead than that, in 
the estimation of Vanity Fair, where your 
life-booth is stationed. 

By and by, grown a little older, and stand- 
ing on the threshold of her first party, the 
question of the low bodice first confronts the 
young girl, and she intuitively shrinks from 
the ordeal. But it takes but a little ridicule, 
and a little flattery, to change the nature 
that God meant to be a rose into a scentless, 
dewless, blushless bit of millinery's perfec- 
tion, no more to be compared to the blessed 
Lord's intention than a bit of artificial mus- 
lin is to a bud in my far-away California 
garden. 

Then, dear girls, if you would be beautiful 
with the beauty that strikes root in Para- 
dise and will cast its blossoms in Heaven, 
be natural. Be true to something within you, 
higher than any mere conventional code or 
worldly-wise mandate. If it is your natural 
impulse to be courteous, and S3^mpathetic, 
and sweet, (and, blessed be God, it is the 
natural bent of most girls,) don't let con- 
formity's tricksters exchange your genuine 



3o6 ^mhj^x (&lint&. 

blossom for a mere shred of muslin, fash- 
ioned after ever so perfect a similitude of a 
rose. The birds of the air and the angels 
in Heaven will never be fooled by an arti- 
ficial blossom, however much dudes and so- 
ciety-feather-heads may pretend to desire it. 
Grow for God, not for the world. Wear 
your sweetness in your heart, rather than in 
outside show. 

There is nothing that will so absolutely il- 
luminate a face as a fellowship in some other 
body's good fortune than our own. The 
conventional smile that the artificial girl 
wears, compared to the bonnie smile my 
own true queen of girls wears, wherever I 
find her — behind a shop-counter, in an 
office, or on a clerk's stool — is as the illumi- 
nation the sun makes on a June morning, 
compared to the radiance cast by a single 
pearl in the moonlight. Both are fair and 
alluring, perhaps, in their way, but the last 
lacks warmth and soul. 

Whatever service you may find it in your 
way to render, then, my dears, be it loaning 
a pin, measuring off a yard of ribbon, or sav- 
ing a life, put a big pinch of heart in to sea- 
son the transaction. 

It is as easy to answer pleasantly the ques- 



^xtxhi^ CUttuts. 307 

tion a stranger asks, although it may break 
in upon your time, and seem to you to be of 
little moment, as it is to respond grumpily, 
and with uncalled-for reserve. 

I can imagine the whole world coming 
under the influence of sunshiny good-nature 
and courtesy, as a strong man comes under 
the influence of laughing gas, so that even 
disagreeable and painful things that are 
forced to happen lose their pain and their 
sting. 

Imagine a woman stepping on to a street 
car, as many of us daily do, after a prolonged 
chase through the mud. The first impulse 
is to scold. But what good will that do? 
All the hard things said can never undo the 
happenings of a past minute. The conduc- 
tor, born, in most cases, with a lifted heel 
against mankind, is primed with a rude re- 
tort, and the passengers are prepared to 
stare, or laugh, or sneer, as the occasion may 
require. But instead of a cross and haughty 
protest, the injured woman is ready with a 
good-natured laugh and a pleasant word. 
How quickly the atmosphere changes! It 
is as though a plume of lilac had swung 
through the air. The conductor feels an 
unwonted warmth in his heart, and the 



3o8 Jimtijev Clttnts. 

woman leaves an impression of beauty be- 
hind her that will be recalled when perfect 
features and a spotless complexion would be 
forgotten. Who would not like to be re- 
membered for a pleasant answer, or a gen- 
tle service rather than for a pretty nose or a 
well modeled chin ! 

You want to live in this world, my dears, 
as a spray of lilies lives in June. Every wind 
that blows, be it great or small, through 
your lives, should set an influence straying 
like a perfume through the air. You won't 
have to hunt out the breeze and the oppor- 
tunity. All you have to do is to cultivate 
the sweetness of your woman heart — occa- 
sions will be as recurring as the winds that 
blow in summer. 

Then continue to be more and more good- 
natured and sympathetic and sweet-man- 
nered, I beseech you, if the dear Lord made 
you that way. Let no false idea of decorum, 
or propriety, step in between you and the 
performance of a spontaneous action of 
kindness. Never fear that you can be too 
good-natured and too amiable either in bus- 
iness or in social life. The same bright spon- 
taneity of sympathy and good-fellowship 
that makes home happy, will make office-life 



^mhzx mints. 309 

and tfie space back of the shop counter 
bright also, if persevered in. 

And if God did not give you a genial na- 
ture in the first place, cultivate it. Don't 
keep life a wilderness because you were not 
born to the direct inheritance of a rose-gar- 
den. You have a "fellowship with hearts to 
keep and cultivate," before you are fit for 
the companionship of angels. 

Set to work, then, to plant slips in the 
desert before the time draws nigh when they 
shall find no warmth nor sunshine left in all 
the land to start them growing. Remember 
it is not always youth-time, any more than it 
is always May; and grafts and shoots that 
grow readily in spring will take no root in 
bleak November. Cultivate your smiles and 
your simple services of love now, and old 
age shall be but an afternoon trellis, hung 
deep with perfumed roses, as beautiful in the 
sunset glow as in the dawn. 



How pleasant it is to meet people with 
whom everything goes just right. After 
coming in contact with the great parade of 
the dissatisfied it is like leaving a sawmill 



310 Ji^mXrjev mints. 

where iron teeth bite and sharp claws tear 
to while a happy hour by a sylvan brooR 
that is full of sparkle and full of song. 

I was once walking up the stairway of a 
suburban station with a mite of a woman 
as wee and sweet as a pea blossom. It was 
colder than an Arctic Christmas and the 
breath from our nostrils smote the air like 
white banners. 

''Suppose we run in for a bit and warm 
our feet by the fire," said the small woman. 

So we ran in, only to find the fire built in 
so lofty a stove that our ears barely touched 
the level of its radiating surface. 

What did the little woman do when she 
discovered the impossibility of carrying out 
her plan? You or I perhaps would have ex- 
claimed : "Bother take this old stove ! Just 
like a railway corporation to make things 
uncomfortable for its patrons! The public 
ought to tear down these waiting-rooms as 
fast as they are built," etc. But my small 
friend said nothing of the kind. Sne merely 
looked around a bit and remarked : 

"How nice and clean they keep these sta- 
tions, don't they? The stove is pretty big, 
but I suppose it heats the place better." 



^mhzx C!5Xiixts. 311 

"How about getting your feet warm?" I 
asked. 

"Oh, it will take a little longer, but I 
guess we can spare the time. Too rapid 
heating of cold feet makes the worst sort of 
chilblains, anyway." 

"You infinitesimal flick of sunshine," T 
wanted to say, "you ought to start the flow- 
ers growing wherever you pass !" I would 
rather have the disposition of that woman 
than wear court jewels and live in Windsor 
palace. 

It is not beauty that makes a happy home, 
nor fine furniture, nor plenty of good food. 
It takes a sweet-natured and a comfort- 
distilling tongue every time to imbue four 
walls and a lot of upholstery with a soul. I 
have a mind to take a snap shot at a few 
homes I happen to know and see if my illus- 
trations do not go far to prove my asser- 
tions. 

First, there is the home of the Snapovers. 
They are a healthy, happy lot as you ever 
saw, but they have the fatal faculty of tak- 
ing things hard. For instance, one of the 
girls sets a vase full of water on a hand- 
some book. The vase holds violets and 



312 Jimlrjev CUttnts. 

creates an atmosphere of Parmesian sun- 
shine and sweetness all its own. By an ac- 
cidental flip a few drops of water are spilled 
over upon the book. Straightway there 
is a veritable Sebastopol massacre of peace. 
The mother tears her hair and cries, ^^ou 
have spoiled the book! Careless, careless 
girl that you are, behold what you have 
done!" The grandmother shakes like a 
withered leaf and offers religious consola- 
tion in allopathic doses. 

"The dear Lord help us," she quavers, "in 
our hour of need ! Your mother will die in 
one of these spells brought on by the 
thoughtless acts of her own offspring !" 

"Ten dollars would not replace that work 
of art, ruined by an ungrateful child !" moans 
the father. 

"You know I love you, mamma," weeps 
the daughter, "do you not? Believe me, I 
never meant to do this thing. Oh, it will 
kill me if you do not forgive me!" Mean- 
time the hired girl comes in from the 
kitchen and complains that one of the chil- 
dren has broken a china cup. The tide of 
tears follows kitchenward and washes the 
emotional family thither on a foaming flood. 

"How could you do so dreadful a thing?" 



J^mirjev (§iiints. 313 

sobs the mother, while the afflicted father 
controls his emotions sufficiently to order 
the young culprit to bed. 

Now these people have never known a big 
, trouble all their lives. The father is pros- 
perous; no disease has ever invaded the 
band, sudden death has not swooped down 
upon them like a meteor from the black 
bosom of night, and yet a more distressed 
and distressful household does not exist. 
To visit them is like loitering within the 
gates of a bombarded city. Everybody is 
keyed up to some great pitch of emotion 
perpetually. They live as they should live 
who await the summons of the high exe- 
cutioner from out a palace of delight. Of 
what avail the pictured walls and the tapes- 
tried doorways, when at any moment the 
silent messenger may summon them away 
to red-handed doom ! Some day a real sor- 
row will invade the Snapover household, 
and there will be no reserve strength to 
meet it. The entire family will be in the 
condition of soldiers who, having used up 
their powder in spectacular fireworks, are 
helpless at the sounding of general alarm. 
Or like the little girl who cried "Wolf" so 
often in play that when the genuine red- 



314 ^mhzx mints. 

fanged monster of the forest bore down 
upon her nobody rallied to her relief because 
each one believed the outcry to be a false 
alarm. God pity the Snapovers when the 
actual bewilderment of an appalling calam- 
ity is upon them ! They will be, I am afraid, 
like sheep that huddle together in the track 
of an advancing cyclone, or like the group of 
wind flowers that lie nearest the approach- 
ing wave of a prairie fire. 

There is another household to which I am 
sometimes admitted as a guest. There are 
only three in the family, but the least one 
of all is a bald-headed tyrant of the Robes- 
pierrean type. His faintest bUnk is law, 
and the doubling of his tiny fist causes the 
heart of the boldest to quake. He is not two 
years old, but the supremacy of antique 
dynasties is heavy upon him. If he sleeps, 
the household, including the guest within 
the gates, suspend the breath and hush the 
footfall. If he wakes, there is nothing per- 
mitted to interfere with his wishes. Cares 
he to play horse? The father bends his pa- 
tient back and canters to and fro like a 
steed of the desert. Does he sneeze? Every 
window is shut and adult cumberers of the 



earth long for death. At the table, perhaps, 
he evinces a sudden desire to walk upon the 
viands. He plants one foot in the turnip, 
and with a dimpled hand toys with the 
mashed potato. He is removed from his 
playground by force, only through fear that 
the excitement will make him ill, not out 
of regard for the sensibiUties of the over- 
fastidious guest. The children, of whom 
this babe is a blooming type, always have a 
tendency to over development of brain, and 
for that reason need to be humored and deli- 
cately handled. God knows, there is not suf- 
ficient brain development in the human race 
at the best to discourage it in such a manner 
as this. Rather an abnormal brain than the 
torture of the home experience of a baby- 
ridden family. Children are dear and sweet 
in their way, but they should not be allowed 
to run things with too free a hand. Gray- 
headed men and women, even fathers and 
mothers, to say nothing of superfluous and 
silly guests, have a few rights, along with 
the African and the alien, which a two-year- 
old child should be taught to recognize and 
respect. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 

There is one more home I would like to 



3i6 ^nthj^x (Mints. 

show you before I slip the slide and reverse 
the picture. It is a country dwelling, and 
all the beautiful gifts of nature surround it 
like the wash of summer seas. There is a 
crab-apple orchard at the side that puts 
forth its frain of blossoms from year to 
year, and later on yields spicy windfalls of 
the prettiest fruit the sun shines on. A 
vine drapes the gabled roof, and in spring 
gives shelter to robins and bluebirds that 
come and go beneath the shining of the mel- 
low sun, or greet the dawn with flute-calls 
and madrigals. Roses in companies, like 
red-coated hussars, and ladies wearing pink 
mantles and bonnets snow white and pinned 
with dew, stand about that old-fashioned 
homestead and curtsey all day in the mazes 
of a stately minuet. Should not life be 
happy passed in such a paradise? Within 
the four walls, notwithstanding, there rests 
the perpetual gloom of a shadow that never 
lifts. 

The male head of the family is a cynic, a 
cold-blooded disbeliever in God, in virtue 
and in love. He poisons with his malign in- 
fluence every attribute of joy. He sneers 
at everything pure and holy. His unfaith 
blights the sweetest belief as the parasite 



^mhi^x dlXints. 317 

kills the vine. His mind is a charnel-house, 
and the effluvia of its own corruption blights 
the atmosphere about it. There can never 
be happiness where that man lives any more 
than there can be health near a sewer. How 
I should love to have the task given me to 
lift our friend with a pair of tongs and 
throw him over the fence, that such a home 
as he defiled might find the chance to 
achieve its own possibilities. With him re- 
moved from the circle, the will-crushed 
mother and the hypnotized children might 
begin to realize the life that God intended 
they should. There is no more chance for 
such as they to enjoy this beautiful world 
than there is for the leavening of bread with 
sour yeast, or the sounding of a harmony 
with a discordant string. 

Taking things hard, then, selfishness and 
a perverted nature lie at the root of unhappi- 
ness in these thus hastily portrayed homes. . 
For the first we have nothing but pity, 
mixed now and then with a little harmless 
ridicule. The poor unfortunates find no 
peace themselves and give nobody else any. 
They are always in a state of vibration, like 
the chords of a harp rudely stricken. They 
are stabbed twenty times a day by idle 



3t8 ^mhzx CIttnts. 

words that were not meant to wound. They 
are slighted and insulted and snubbed, ac- 
cording to their morbid fancy, when nobody 
on earth ever intended to molest them. A 
domestic tiff means hopeless disruption, an 
ordinary headache is congestion of the 
brain; an idle calamity, such as the deface- 
ment of a book or the breaking of a bit of 
• crockery, means flagrant sin and humble 
expiation. These people pass through life 
like a lobster without its shell. Their skin 
is thinner than rice paper and their heart is 
pinned upon their sleeve. Every breeze 
buffets them, every task drives them, every 
vulture of care has its beak in their heart; 
and I think at last the cool touch of the 
death angel upon their fevered hearts 
shall be like the soft hand of a mother upon 
the childish brow that finds no rest from 
pain's delirium. When God turns down the 
lights and smooths the covers over these 
poor restless ones perhaps they shall fall 
asleep to awaken to the knowledge of what 
a fuss they chose to make over trifles and 
how foolish it all seems in the light of a new 
consciousness. 

For the selfishness that forgets all other 
claims but what it owes to "big A" and "lit- 



^mhjtt flints. 319 

tie A," there is not so much to be said in 
commiseration. Selfishness is a prickly 
vice and hard to handle. It grows in every 
garden, and will never be uprooted from 
mortal soil. 

If mothers who humor their children to 
the point of the unbearable would stop to 
consider that in so doing they do not create 
so much pleasure for the little ones as they 
awaken disgust in the hearts of all who come 
in contact with the darlings perhaps they 
would pursue a different course. There are 
very few parents who would not wish the 
highest good for those confided to their 
care. To know that the children who are 
so exceeding dear to them were generally 
referred to by outsiders as ''^little imps" and 
"holy terrors" might prove a barrier in the 
way of overindulgence. If nature had in- 
tended the baby to be paramount, nature 
would have installed the baby first and pre- 
sented it with parents as an afterthought. 
The home that is ruled by unwisdom and 
immaturity must ever find its type in the 
stables (if such stables were possible) where 
the trainers are subservient to the colts and 
the jockeys are put through their paces at 



320 ^xahj^x flints. 

the caprice of the entering two-year-olds of 
the Derby. 

I was sitting in a suburban train one night 
not long ago awaiting the time to start. In 
front of me sat a long-faced, erect gentle- 
man of probably 65 or 70. His eye was keen 
as a hawk's, and there was no sign about 
him of waning power. 

"It is nearly two years now," I heard a 
voice say, "since Mary died." 

"Two years the 5th of May." 

"Ah, yes. Well, I suppose time is com- 
mencing to rob the blow of its first sharp- 
ness.^'' 

"If I looked upon her as dead," repHed the 
old gentleman quietly, "time could never 
alleviate the sorrow, but to me she is not 
dead; she is as much alive and even more 
constantly with me now than ever before." 

"You mean," suggested the other voice, 
"that faith is so strong that you can locate 
her, and behold her with your spiritual eyes, 
in heaven." 

"Not at all. Mary is not in heaven ; she is 
here on earth with me. Every evening I 
read the paper to her and talk to her as I 



J^nxi^^v (Mints, 321 

used, the only difference being that she 
makes no comments now. Every morning 
I bid her good-bye and every evening I re- 
peat the salutation. In ways that I can't ex- 
plain she communicates with me, so that 
but for the sound of her voice our commu- 
nion is as perfect as it was for nearly forty 
years." 

"Am I to understand that you are going 
over to the spiritualistic belief?" queried the 
voice, while its owner peered a trifle ner- 
vously over a pair of silver spectacles at the 
old gentleman. 

"Understand what you please," was the 
answer; ''I tell you the simple truth; Mary 
is with me, and but for that knowledge I 
should be beside her in my grave. I am not 
a believer in table-tippings nor materializa- 
tion, but I am a believer in Mary, and know 
that she is still with me." 

God bless her! I hope Mary will never 
leave him until she has permission to take 
him along with her. I believe that about 
the only consolation one gets in the su- 
preme sorrow of death is out of the very 
faith that makes us believe our dead linger 
within the sound of our voices. The thought 
of a far-away heaven where the baby I loved 



322 ^mhtx flints. 

or the friend I leaned upon are safely shel- 
tered from sorrow and trouble is little com- 
fort to me. I want them nearer still; so 
close that they can hear my cry and slip 
within my arms! 



The last time. Did you ever stop to think 
of it? It is coming, perhaps it has already 
come, and you did not know it. You have 
gotten up for the last time from the chair 
where you have so long sat; you have 
closed the desk and slipped the key into the 
pocket whence your hand shall never take 
it again. You have read the last item of 
news from the familiar paper, and closed 
the covers of the last book you shall ever 
read on earth. You have looked for the last 
time into eyes that never failed to answer 
love with love; you have flashed the last 
message into the eyes of the enemy who has 
wronged you ; you have looked your last at 
sunset sky and morning's roseate flush of 
dawn. For you the last cable car has swung 
around the corner and stopped to take you 
CO your home for the last time. You have 



turned out the lights and lain down in your 
bed for the last time, and the stars that light 
the midnight sky have flashed you their last 
signal. You have taken your last journey, 
written your last letter, eaten your last 
meal, slept your last sleep. The story is 
told, the play is ended, the lights are burn- 
ing low, the music is hushed. Yet, most 
potent of all in the significance of the 
thought is the fact that your last opportun- 
ity for doing a deed of helpful kindness has 
perhaps come. 'For the last time on earth 
the chance confronts you to be gentle with 
' some one who has erred, to put out a strong 
hand to some one who is weak, to say a 
word in behalf of some one who is defense- 
less. Do not let love's opportunity go by 
unchallenged, remembering always that it 
may be the last you will ever know. 



«^ 



